Mrs. Foley's Art Room News

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

CML Brainstorm #2

My first idea is to join forces with my librarians to create maker spaces in each of the school learning centers where I work, due to my shifting schedule. My second idea is to either create a space using bookshelves in my grade 4-5 art room because there is more space and the other idea is to create a maker cart. By using a series of bins and keeping materials organized I could have it available in the art room for students to pull out or I could also move it to other classrooms. In my grades K-3, Summit Street School the art room is extremely small with no additional storage so this is my bigger challenge. I read in one post where an art teacher does a maker cart with the idea that classroom teachers sign it out and you keep track of consumables by having an inventory list of materials used and hopefully teacher fill out the form to keep the inventory of materials current. I am not sure how feasible this plan is given experience with sign out calendars for technology carts.

I know give my personality I am a bit of an organizational freak (for an art teacher) so trying to maintain a cart that others use and perhaps not keep up with posting materials used might make me a little crazy...being honest:-) I know with anything new people have to get used to new routines and trained. Any suggestions?

My CML Brainstorm Ideas

Like most of you I needed some time to digest and process all the great stuff we learned. I liken this past week to learning how to tread water, while watching others display their different strokes as they moved through the virtual pool of making and creating!

My first order of business was to reach out to my school librarians, as they both were interested in pursuing the creation of makerspaces in their learning centers. Summit Street is K-3rd grade and Thomas Fleming is grades 4-5. We are tentatively set to all meet next week, along with another K-3 librarian in our district. These conversations are leading me to some possible goals for CML.

Idea one is to collaborate with both librarians to share resources and create maker spaces in the Learning Center. Students would have greater access to the Learning Center than my art room as I travel between buildings each week. Collaborating might involve working with specific classrooms during my arts integration day. So far both librarians have very tight schedules teaching on my AI day, which happens to be Friday. We would like to have different classroom teachers rotate through and focus on integrating NGSS, Tech and art standards, through a STEAM driven format. Students will/can also use writing skills to reflect on their work and the process.
I am also hosting a student teacher this fall, as well as beginning my graduate research protocols and data collection on creativity. Create, Make and Learn will dovetail quite well with my graduate research on teaching for creativity and teaching more creatively. My arts integration sessions should also fit in nicely with this work.

Monday, February 2, 2015

Team Synergy Mural Project

Team Synergy began working on a mural project earlier in the year as a "House Building" activity. Mrs. Lemnah, Mrs. Lee, Mr. Kenny and Mrs. Guntulis's classes all worked very hard to create two murals depicting Camels's Hump by Night and Mt. Mansfield by Day. Students were assigned individual tiles that corresponded to a numbered grid much like a map. After locating their tile placement on the mural they had to find the color palette associated with the tile. They then created their own abstract painting design that corresponded with the colors and shape on the tile. In some cases they had 2-3 different sets of colors to use. We all came together in the gym to layout the tiles to reveal the murals for the first time. We will be sharing this project during Youth Art Month on March 11th at a visual art assembly. Stay tuned for the hanging of the murals sometime later in March.

Click here for the full slide show

Fifth Grade Stick Animals

Fifth grade students learned about the contemporary sculptor Debra Butterfield during this unique and very earth friendly project. All students were required to bring in a small amount of natural items to add to our community collection of sticks and stuff. The next step was to sketch and create their animals. Students learned how to use coping and hack saws, glue guns and small hand tools for cutting and bending. The creations had to be some type of animal. real or imaginary that could stand on its own. Despite a few hot glue gun burns and small cuts along the way the students were really excited about this hands on project.