.

I updated a board in my room with tips from the book  The Art Teacher Book of Lists.    I am also excited about  a contest on Facebook to be a guest Pinterest Board collaborator on  the Container Stores' Pinterest site for teachers. The board is called   "The Organized Teacher Tips and Tricks.    You can find the board  Here .I was super excited to be picked as a guest Pinner!  (I think I may have already exceeded the 10 pins allowed per week.)  Once I get on a roll, I sometimes get a little carried away.  It should be a fun especially on the hot summer days here in Texas. Have a good week!  We have 13 more days until summer break.... then summer school art camp!  I wanted to update this post.  I received a generous gift card from the Container Store today as a thank you for Pinning! I can't wait to organize some of my work cabinets! 

They are all done. The kindergartners did a fabulous job making these for Mother's Day. I used up some dark green 12x18 construction paper. We practiced drawing lines and then using the paint scrapers to add more lines to look like plant stems.  I pre folded the paper lengthwise into 4ths then they refolded it in half and cut to the fold line on the fold.  You refold the paint side out and curl. Staple! You can and add a ribbon or in my case we reused painted paper scrapes with their names. On day two, we added flowers using a pencil with no eraser and pre cut tissues.  Happy Mother's Day!

I love our school librarian and she loves art. She returned from her conference and showed me this book she got for our school library. I just started my 2nd grade Rousseau tiger lesson so we read the book today. I have many other books about this artist, but this is an amazing book. The illustrations, and Henri's message of never giving up to be an artist is wonderful.  There are many historical facts and artist cameos spread throughout the book. I would highly recommend asking your school librarian to get this book for your classroom.   The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau  is also available on Amazon. My students are sketching their final copy from their thumbnail tigerscapes this week.  Can you believe the drawing ability of this student??? After we sketch, we outline in Oil Pastel, then paint with tempera cakes. Below is a previous example.