Friday, January 30, 2015

Art Club is the Greatest

Art Club might be my best decision in many years. I decided to start it this year and, so far, we've had three meetings. Art Club meets on Thursdays right after school until 5:00. I have 20 4th and 5th graders who all had to apply to join. Of course I got all kids who are in love with art. 20 super talented students and no behavior issues. It's like art teacher heaven. 
1/4 of Art Club in their sweet shirts we screen printed last week. One of these
days I'll remember to take a picture before we get busy making awesome art. 
A big reason for starting Art Club was to give my students some extra opportunities to continue to improve their art skills. I'm able to have them work on projects that would either be too difficult for a whole grade level or impossible to store with 120 kids working on large projects. 

 Our first project is animal head sculptures made out of paper mâché. They'll eventually be mounted to boards I cut out of MDF. They'll look similar to taxidermy mounts. The pictures below are a few in-process works. 
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5 comments:

  1. MaryJanuary 31, 2015 at 4:47 PM

    Love the t-shirts! I hope you post the finished paper mache heads.

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  2. AnonymousFebruary 2, 2015 at 10:19 PM

    May I ask your criteria when having the students apply to Art Club?

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  3. Zach StollerFebruary 3, 2015 at 6:46 AM

    Sure. I had each student fill out an application that included several questions about why that individual should be in Art Club. I also made it clear to them that their classroom behavior was a part of it. I had way more than 20 applications, so it was incredibly difficult to choose.

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  4. sallgoodFebruary 8, 2015 at 12:48 AM

    Teaching Art Club is great, isn't it? I have the opportunity to run 7 groups at 4 schools, 4 afternoons a week. We've never done Art Club shirts- maybe next year! :D
    We happen to be doing paper mache now too- we're making "Vases with Faces" this time around. Paper mache is a favorite every year- lots of work, but worth it! :D
    How did you construct your animal heads?

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  5. Zach StollerFebruary 8, 2015 at 7:20 AM

    It really is a lot of fun. The armature of the animal heads is just crumpled newsprint and masking tape.

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