*Sigh*
School has been out for 3 weeks now, and I'd love to say that it's been relaxing, but in many ways it has been just the opposite! I am taking a trip to Chicago next week, so hopefully that will give me a chance to wind down and sort through my mind. Remember that class that I am creating for next year, the one that's a combination of art/yearbook/photography? I haven't started the curriculum for that yet. I need to get my rear in gear! I have been scouting Pinterest for ideas, of course. My brain has just been too preoccupied with other stuff to focus on school. Maybe about... mid-July I'll get motivated. Lol! Summer. Gotta love the brain-shutdown!

Gosh, I'm so proud of my kids. Their selections are now displayed and ready for tomorrow's art show. Everything looks great! It's wonderful to see everything come together, and it's especially great to see kids stopping in the hall and gym to admire their work and their classmates' art!

5th/6th Grade Scratch Art

4th Grade

5th/6th Grade Landscape Paintings

3rd Grade Cityscapes

4th Grade Picasso-Inspired Computer-Generated Art

For some reason I didn't get all of my emailed pictures to come up, so I will post pictures from K-1st-2nd soon.

Metal tree outside of Crystal Bridges

My daughter and I took a day trip to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. It's only about 40 minutes from our house, but I'd recommend taking a trip to check it out if you're within any reasonable driving distance, of if you happen to be passing through the area.
I hadn't heard of it before since I haven't lived in the SW Missouri area for very long and have been spending so much time working and going to school. I looked at the website and decided to go exploring the museum, and I must say, the pictures on the website just doesn't do it justice. The architecture is absolutely stunning, the surroundings are some of the most beautiful in the area. I will be going back as often as I can to just take in the surroundings and walk the trails. I can quite honestly say that this is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.
Unfortunately,  my phone (which I was using as a camera) died early into our visit, so I didn't get nearly as many photos as I would have liked to.

The main entrance is 4 stories up, providing a nice overlook of the entire  museum.

My daughter was pretty impressed by this sculpture...

...it moved all around, never in the same position. I couldn't really tell if it was wind powered or  electric powered.

Eleven, the museum's restaurant, has stunning arched ceilings and glass panel walls overlooking  the water.

These mocha cupcakes were delicious!

This is the drop-in art studio. Sheridan made tissue paper flowers and also painted watercolor flowers.

Here's a peek into the first gallery we went into. The black and white art on the wall was the saddest thing I think I've ever seen. Have you ever been moved to tears by a work of art? I can't remember it's title or artist, but it was depicting the burning of a black orphan asylum in New York. It's one of those things that make me ashamed to be human.

One of the art photos I took before my battery died.

I really wish I could post some pictures of the trails, they were just so beautiful. And I really wish I could take my art classes here on a field trip (admission is free, but there would be bus costs). At least when i go back I can take more photos and take them on a virtual tour!

Over the long weekend my mom was visiting for Easter. I have a big maple tree in my yard, and my mom said she'd like to make a butterfly out of painted maple seed spinners (Okay, so does anyone know what they're actually called? I'll just call them "helicopters."). We thought about all sorts of tiny art you could do with them, but only made a few of the ideas. Here's how they turned out.

We thought of at least a dozen more things we could make, but decided to stop where we were for the day. If nothing else, they can be used as a tiny canvas!

 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. :)

For our Chinese New Year lesson, 3rd and 4th grade made egg carton dragons after viewing videos of dragon costumes and stories about why dragons are considered lucky.
Just this past week I asked my classes to give me ideas of some things they might want to do next year. Everyone in 3rd and 4th grade said they'd like to make dragons again, and kids in 1st and 2nd grade asked if they would be able to make the egg carton dragons. I hope they won't be too disappointed if we don't specifically do egg carton dragons... but I'm sure we'll make *some kind* of dragons as part of our Chinese New Year festivities next year as well.

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!