I really enjoy checking out a lot of the other art teacher blogs that are out there. There are a ton of really talented and dedicated teachers who post some amazing projects. I'll see a project I really like and I'll drag the link into a folder I keep on my computer labeled "Project Ideas." Unfortunately, I get so busy sometimes that I don't go back to check that folder often enough. Another art teacher in my district told me about Pinterest earlier this fall. My wife, a graphic designer, had been using Pinterest for several months, so I was familiar with how it worked. What I didn't realize is how many cool art projects are on there!
If you aren't familiar with how Pinterest works, here is a quick rundown of the site. Anyone can "pin" images on the internet. If I find a really cool project on somebody's blog, I can pin it on a board in Pinterest. The image is saved in a visual file essentially. It is super easy to scroll through and find particular images which are also linked back to the original web page they were found on. People can also "re-pin" images already on Pinterest. There are quite a few art teachers already pinning, so I am able to search for art lessons and re-pin them to my elementary art board. I highly recommend checking out the site.
The time has come. School starts bright and early tomorrow morning. I think pretty much everything is in place for another school year. I always enjoy seeing pictures of other teacher's rooms when I look at their blogs, so I'm going to put up a few pictures from my room. If nothing else, I can look back fondly in a few weeks and reminisce about how clean and shiny everything is.
I made a few changes to my room this year. I dedicated my main bulletin board wall to information about what each grade level is studying. In the past, I have always put up prints and changed out a few as the year went along. I purchased a bunch of vocabulary cards at the end of the year last year that I think will work really well on new bulletin board.
Another change this year has to do with this blog. I'm going to try my best to attach lesson plan files to each new post. Hopefully this is helpful to people who read the blog. If there are any other requests for things you'd like to see on here, comment and let me know! Happy 2011-2012 everyone!
When we do bottle cap art at Thomas, we go big. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may recall that my 4th Grade students created a new bottle cap mural last year specifically for the library. Here is a link to the original post. The mural was installed over the summer and it looks great! I thought I would post a few pictures of the finished piece.
