Vote!

Alright, folks. It's that time of the year again. Do your civic duty and vote for your favorite blog over at The Art of Ed. Hopefully mine is one of them. I'm in the elementary category. There are a lot of wonderful blogs listed. It's always a time of the year when I find new blogs that I haven't ever seen before. Good luck to all of the finalists!

It's Voting Time!

It's that time of the year again, folks! The fine people over at The Art of Education have just announced their finalists for blog of the year. There are a whole lot of super amazing blogs that you can vote for, but I sure hope you'll vote for Thomas Elementary Art. Somehow I won last year, so I now feel like I'm defending a professional sports title. (It's the same, right?) Let's go for the repeat win! You can even vote once per day!

Click here to vote!

Sharing Lesson Plans

Sharing is a good thing. I try as hard as I can to post my lesson plans at the end of each blog post. I know how long they can take to write. Since I've already done the work, why not share the love? I've been posting links for files I upload to Google Drive. The links take you to the Word or PDF document. They are downloadable (File --> Download), but I get a lot of requests to "share" the files. I set them up so everyone has access, so I can't share more without giving other people the ability to edit my original files online. If I did that, the files wouldn't be in their original form for others to view. 

Tonight I'm trying out something different. I've Googled my head off looking for a way to make my files download instantly from my blog. They are still the linked files from Google Drive, but I've figured out a way to make them download immediately. After the links are downloaded, you can edit them in order to adjust the lesson to your liking. My question for all of you who use them is this- which version would you like?

Here are both links to try out. I'm using my popular Totem Pole lesson as an example. What fun! PLEASE comment to let me know which way you prefer. Thanks!

Old School Way (Link directly to Google Drive Document - Click on File -->Download to put it on your computer.)
Check out the lesson plan here!

Immediate Download (Exact same file, but it downloads directly to your computer.)

 

And the Winner Is...

WHAT??? How did this happen? When I found out last week that I was a finalist (for the first time ever) for Art Ed Blog of the Year from The Art of Education, I was thrilled. I hoped that I'd get enough votes to get into the top ten so I could get a rad blog badge. Never for a second did I think that I would win. I'm truly humbled. Thanks to everyone who voted for me. Wow.

There are so many amazing art ed blogs out there. Make sure to check out the rest of the winning blogs for 2013. 

Spring Header Cleaning and Blog Design Tips

Every once in a while I get a hankerin' to change the design of the blog a bit. The header is the perfect place. So, without further ado, say hello to the new Thomas Elementary Art header. Hello! (That's the blog header responding. No, it's not weird for a blog header to be talking back.) Other than having an underlying art theme, I really don't design my headers to have too much relevance to my school or what is going on in my room. I'll create something simply because I think it's amusing. I don't think I'm completely satisfied with it yet, but it's close enough to post. 

My Thoughts on Classroom Blog Design:
I like to keep the basic design of the blog pretty clean and as easy to read as possible. I regularly see blogs that are poorly designed and difficult to read. Here are a few tips from me to keep your blog lookin' spiffy! Feel free to print them out and tape them to your favorite shirt. 

•  Your student's artwork should be the star of the show.
• A blog is meant to convey information to the viewer. It should be easy to read.
• Try to avoid busy or overly chromatic backgrounds that distract from your content. 
• Use value to your advantage. If you put red type on a blue background, your viewers may go cross-eyed. Scintillation should remain on black light posters. 
• Use a legible typeface. Don't ever use Comic Sans. It won't ever be cute. 
• Customize! I hate pulling work off the internet to use as a header. Show off your mad skills (skillz?) and create your own. I use one of the provided blogger templates as a general starting place for this blog, then I customize the wheels off of it using some easily available HTML. A custom header can give your blog an entirely different feel. I make my blog headers in Photoshop.
• Make navigation easy.
• Animated GIFs stopped being cool in 1997.

Here is what the old header looked like. That beady eye was starting to creep me out.

Electronically Popular

I originally started this blog over a year ago to showcase the excellent artwork created by the students here at Thomas Elementary and allow parents to have a closer look at exactly what is going on in the art room.  I had been following other art room blogs and I know they are great resources for teachers.  I hoped that other teachers might also check out the artwork on the blog and use it as inspiration for projects in their own classrooms.  


The nerd in me has always been interested in knowing if people actually visit this blog.  I have a hit counter on the main page, and I'm proud to say that in the past year, 8,495 people have visited.  Just over a month ago, I came across something called Google Analytics.  It is a free website tracking software that counts visits and much, much more.  The artwork of Thomas students has been viewed in 48 states in the US and 49 countries overall.  The map below shows where blog visitors have come from.  The darker green the country is, the more visits have come from that country.  I want to thank everyone who has visited and helped make the blog a successful part of my classroom.  Continue to stop by to see the fantastic work done by the kids here at Thomas.  They are excited to share their work with the world!