Kindergartners finished their bugs and added them to their chosen spots on the "Bugtown Boogie" dance floor. This turned out really cute! The kids absolutely loved the book, Bugtown Boogie by Warren Hansen. I love the variety of bugs that kids made- flying bugs, spiders, bees, stink bugs, lady bugs, and bugs that haven't yet been named! They were proud of their class's buggy dance party artwork!

My kindergartners have been working on dancing bugs! We watched a read-aloud on Read to Me Las Vegas and the kids love to sing along... "The Bugtown Boogie..... shaking up the woods tonight!" The book featured a variety of bugs all having a good time at a dance party that was found through a little door at the bottom of a tree in the forest.

Some bugs have wings, some have antennae, some have dots and stripes, some are stinky (see green bug above- that is stink coming from his behind!)

Now we have to place all of our bugs into place on our "Bugtown Boogie" class page which will be displayed at the art show.

I was a lucky ducky this year and got to spend a day observing the Missouri Art Teacher of the Year. She was so much fun to watch, her lessons were great and her relationships with the kids were awesome. But the single most helpful thing I took from that day was her classroom management system for behavior. I immediately tried it out in my classroom (that was in October) and it stuck, and has worked all year for grades K-8.
Here's the overview:

Each table has a number, which is a team. When the team is following procedures (comes in quietly, looks at the teacher when I ask for their attention, cleans up in a quick and orderly way, etc.) they earn a star. At each of these times, all tables have a chance to earn a star. I give "bonus stars" when certain tables are following directions when perhaps the others are not. That is a bonus for resisting peer pressure! Lol! I also give bonus stars to tables who are working at an appropriate voice level while working at certain checkpoint times, and to tables who went above and beyond when cleaning up (for instance, picked up all of the little paper pieces under the table left by the prior class).
As you may have suspected, teams can lose stars as well. Star loss is caused by the team arguing, being disruptively loud, not cleaning up when it's clean up time, etc. There is a lot of pressure from the other members of your table if you are to blame for losing a star! I do give one verbal warning before a star is lost. On that note, I put more focus on GIVING stars for positives rather than removing stars for negatives. Example: "I like how tables 2 and 3 are all sitting in their seat working quietly, they have both earned stars." If the other tables happened to be especially obnoxious, I would give them a warning at this time too.
So, what happens if your table has the most stars? At the end of class, right before lining up, we have the ceremonial counting of the stars. The table with the most stars gets to pick out of my prize tub (picture below) and the runner up gets to line up first, followed by whichever tables came in 3rd and 4th.

With all of these classes, how do you afford to keep a prize tub stocked? If you're like me and have zero budget for these things, then you have to get creative. It's important to remember that kids are easily impressed with things that you and I take for granted. Like pieces of scrapbook paper that they can use as a bookmark or incorporate into their artwork. Here's a list of things that have appeared in my prize tub this year:

• colored or spiral paperclips
• pieces of scrapbook paper
• free-draw paper
• foam stickers
• die cuts (like you can find at Dollar Tree for a pack of 25/$1)
• sticker sheets, cut into many pieces to make about 3-4 stickers per piece
• bookmarks (25 for $1 at Dollar Tree)
• ANYTHING that you find in your desk that you think any of the kids might like... it'll surprise you.

For the older kids, I give them an option to get a "Free Time Ticket" which can be collected and a certain number traded in for a free class period.
Also this year, I gave the kids a chance to exchange their prize for an entry into the drawing for the big paper mache dinosaur that I made during Dino Month. It was a hit! I also had runner-up prizes (rolls of ribbons and supplies that we no longer needed).
Next year I'm doing an all-year drawing for a model car that I have used for still-life drawing in past years. They're really excited!

 I finally got the Kandinsky-inspired concentric circle tree display put up! The kids haven't seen it yet because I put it up after school, but I think they'll really like it! They weren't really sure what I meant when I told them they would be used to make a tree. I showed them a similar picture of a tree that was a smaller, individual art project (it was featured on another blog that I read regularly, but I can't find which one, so please claim it if it was yours!).
Kindergarten and 1st grade made little birds and owls for the tree, and 2-4 made the concentric circles. During the circle lesson, we talked about Kandinsky and his life, looked at his artwork, and looked carefully at the circles to notice how they weren't perfect, geometric circles but rather free-drawn and organic-looking.
Wassily Kandinsky seems to be a rather under-emphasized artist, in my opinion. His concentric circle painting is often replicated and the design can be found on many things. He was a breakthrough artist because he was one of the first to feature completely non-objective art, which soon gave way to more forms of organic, abstract expressionism.
And the kids like to say his name. :)

I have noticed a few other art teachers trying this cool idea (it looks like most of us found it on Pinterest), so I couldn't resist trying it in the classroom as well! I did this with kindergarten and first grade, and they all seemed to really enjoy it. I was afraid the boys would complain because they might not want to make flowers, but none of them had even one negative peep about it! The look great on my back bulletin board, which had to be emptied of all words and diagrams for state testing quality control purposes. These re-beautified it!

Today I had to teach art from a cart (well, not even really a cart, just some tubs!) because the book fair has taken over my classroom for the week!  

On the search for something not too messy but lots of fun, I found this paper line sculpture idea from a few different websites, including Texas Art Teacher's blog. The kids had a blast with it!

 K-3 did this project using paper strips and paper towel tubes cut into rings.

 The photo above is work by 3rd Grader James C.

When finished, we displayed work outside the art room door. This is 3rd Grade's display, and K-2's work filled the wall outside the other door into the room (pics coming soon). The kids have received lots of compliments on their work and several staff have said that the hallway looks great with all the color! It will remain on display until after the art show at the end of April.

The Kindergartners practiced identifying the folded edge of the paper and cutting symmetrical shapes by folding & cutting, resulting in this lovely place mat for someone they love. This one is my example because it was the only proof left of our project-- everyone was very excited to take theirs home to give to someone! I had some very creative arrangements. We did this project during one 50 minute class, then I laminated them and sent them home with the kids on Valentine's Day.

As one of the first projects for Kindergarten, each student drew a portrait of each other student in class on a 2"x2" square. I collected each of those portraits, in this case of Abigail, and made a collection of everyone's portrait of her. This gave me a good idea of where we were starting out (ability-wise), and gave us a chance to talk about facial features and differences in eye shapes, skin color, hair lengths and textures, etc. It also makes a great keepsake! I will be displaying them in the end-of-year art show along side their later-in-the-year self-portraits.

Today's project was making Kandinsky-style concentric circles and painting them. This will eventually come together as part of a large project that K-4 are contributing to. I got the idea from the blog Some Kind of One-derful, which I found on Pinterest. Our version will be a little different, and I'm super excited to see how it turns out! Essentially, we will have a large tree (I'm going to attempt to fashion one from a plastic tablecloth since we don't have any brown rolls of paper) with Kandinsky's concentric circles (similar to the blog linked above). Beneath the tree will be Kandinsky's circles as flowers. Kindergarten and first grade made birds and owls to place in the tree and around in the hallway. All I can offer right now is this sneak peek of their circles drying patiently in the rack, waiting to become a masterpiece! It should all come together in a couple weeks, so check back for progress!