Mrs. Latimer's Busy Brushes

Hi, guys! Thanks for taking the time to read today! I wanted to share with you the activity I did with my students on S.T.E.A.M. night! Our theme this year was "S.T.E.A.M Night- Awaken your YET!" I designed our t-shirts this year using the Star Wars font and of course a little calligraphy! Originally, my idea was to do BLACKLIGHT Pendulum Painting. I envisioned blacklights, glow in the dark paint, (yada, yada, yada) and as we know- sometimes things do not go as planned. I ordered LED blacklights from Amazon and I thought that three came with the purchase, but I only recieved one. (Reading is fundamental, folks.) So, our ONE blacklight became a decorative piece to light up our neon paint in the back of the room. Anywho- the session still turned out great! I created seven pendulums using dowels, rubber stoppers, waterbottles, yarn, twine, and tape. I spent about 1.5 hours making all seven and once you get the hang of it you can go pretty fast!

It's THAT time of the YEAR! Red Ribbon Weeeeeek!!!! Lots of dressing up and saying "No" to drugs! (Remember when Red Ribbon Week was just wearing a Red Ribbon on your shirt ALL WEEK until it fell off?) Now, we have cool themes, we get to dress up in funky ways, and learn about all the ways we can turn our backs against drugs. I remember in school alot of us thought that drug free week was lame and a waste of time. BUT-- in all honesty we knew the importance of this week especially if we had experienced the trauma of drug related casualities. I was asked by our School Counselor to create some type of art project or lesson based on Drug Free Week. At first, I was busting my brain trying to come up with a project that would match our "Not-Disney" theme (copyright reasons). Annnndddd.... I could not think of ANYTHING. SO I decided to go simple and do a line design project. We would draw ourselves plegding to be drug free.

It's Hispanic Heritage Month!!! I am so excited to teach my students about the importance of other people's culture! This month we are focusing on the artist, Frida Kahlo. Frida is one of my favorite artists to study because she has such a phenomenal story. I was so PUMPED about this lesson that I even painted Frida on the back of my jean jacket to wear to school the next day!    I presented a Google slideshow to my students that displayed some of Frida's work and tidbits about her life. The students were MOST interested in the story of her trolley accident. My sweet babies were so concerned about her. They also thought her painting apparatus was neat! She made use of her bed bound days! We took some time to analyze her artwork. We focused on a few comparisons, what we enjoyed about them, and what struck us---(of course, many of us talked about the unibrow and mustache.) ;)   Then we hopped into the guided drawing! The extra fun part! :) I drew a s

I am ALWAYS looking for a fresh idea! Unfortunately, at times that means I am looking for another person's wonderful idea. Let's be honest, creating your own lessons can be exhausting. BUT-- this year I am challenging myself to create my OWN lessons from scratch more often. Now, this isn't going to be something that I am able to do ALL the time but I am attempting to be CREATIVE more often. I've realized that being an art teacher doesn't mean that I am simply teaching, writing lesson plans, planning, and assessing. That can get boring. IT MEANS THAT I CAN BE CREATIVE---WHICH IS WHAT I ASK MY STUDENTS TO DO EVERYDAY. Surely, I can do it too.I'm the ART TEACHER. SO- I went a little crazy with this lesson! I decided to call these lessons ART MASHUPS! Its where I take two artists and mash them together to create a lesson/project. I taught about the artists Picasso and Modigliani with my 4th grade students. We discussed how both artists abstracted their portrai