Global Connections

I am currently taking part in a very Creative and fun global connection with Creatubbles. 

 I was asked to be a part of a dynamic Plano Texas team of 4 art teacher teammates using the

 Creatubbles app and website to share art and learn globally. 

I have always felt that being the only art teacher on a single campus is very isolating. 

Blogging has opened new windows and allowed me to learn from teachers around the world. 

 Our school district uses Creatubbles to allow students to do the same by sharing and receiving

 bubbles as the share their art using the Creatubbles website and app as a digital portfolio. 

On October 12th, art teachers, students and parents will be able to connect through 

Global Creativity Initiative boards.

What is Creatubbles?  Think of it as a safe Pinterest like place for students to share and receive feed back for their artwork with bubbles and comments,  if you enable. 

You can post your students work or your students can post their work 

when are using the app or personal devices. Just look for the gallery's below and post. 

  You and your students can view artwork from global students including our global teammates from Italy, Japan, UK and here in Plano Texas. 

Here are the listings of the preset boards that students and teachers can post to and follow others. 

If you would like to join and post pictures to the preset themes click here 

There are tutorials on their site to guide you to posting and viewing. 

 (don't you like the little creative friends in the top left corner created by my student? ↖)

If you would like to follow my students and our Creatubbles site click here. 

Here is a previous post on Digital portfolios too!

Mystery Box Contest

I received in invitation from Activa Products to take part in their 

Mystery Box Art Lesson contest last month. 

I had to create a unique lesson with 3 of the 4 products below that came in a box.

I decided to create a new lesson for my summer school art class, A Passport to Art.

I also wanted to do a lesson that would give choices to the makers. 

So I came up with the above lesson. Here are the parts and you can find the lesson and the voting site HERE

I cut a slice of pizza from a cereal box. I used a little foil for the crust texture and they wrapped it with the rigid wrap and smoothed it with my fingers.

I mixed the Celluclay, which comes in gray and white, with warm water in bucket. 

I made a patty and pressed it on the dry crust to form the topping. 

I painted the pizza and used the air dry Activ.Clay to make the toppings. 

To make the ice cream, or gelato, I used a small yogurt cup, spoon and ball of foil.

I wrapped the yogurt cup with the rigid wrap first then made the ball of ice cream. 

This is the Activia CelluCla. Press the ball onto the foil. I smoothed this as it dried.

 I put them together when the top was wet and inserted the spoon. 

This Activ.Clay is an air dry clay that drys super smooth and fast. 

I used it for the pizza toppings too. 

The acrylic paints dried pretty flat so I added modge podge after it dried. 

I am pretty excited to teach this lesson to my 2nd and 3rd graders this summer!

Visit Activa Products Website for many more cool lesson ideas. 

Slice of Cake Art

#Bigartday17 is tomorrow in Texas. We had a big art time making cakes and pie in 5th grade this past 9 weeks. It was fun, it was messy, but I overheard many time, "this is the best project ever!"

My inspiration was the lesson that Rita Martin posted on the Art Teacher Facebook page last year. I ordered the claycrete from Amaco that she recommended from School Speciality at the end of last year when I had some money left in my school spending account.

 I ordered the large box and had some left over. I have 100 students. 

I introduced the lesson using Wayne Thiebaud paintings and this video. 

On day one the students research the pie or cake they wanted to make. They also had to cut out a template from a cereal box that they brought and tape it together. 

Use 3M tape, the cheap stuff didn't stay stuck. 

I made several templates but a few made their own. 

We also referenced this slide from the AOE

You can play around with the templates. I may make them a tad smaller in the future.

And that one kid that wants to be different....:)

Some added the crust with extra cardboard too. 

On day two we did the paper pulp step with the claycrete .

I mixed it with warm water outside my classroom before they came in. Since I don't have warm water in my room, I used a tea pot to warm the water. Old school art at its best!

The claycrete needs to be mixed like meatloaf. We made patties with the paper and pressed the patty on the side of the form and then spread it out thin with one hand inside the form and the other pressing.  Thin is the key. Some students used a craft stick to spread it too.

They need a plate to work on also. This helped to contain the mess. I did have to wipe out the sinks, clean the door handles and pretty much hope the custodian came back the next day. All of this had to be done in one class period. I blocked out a week for this. I also did a smaller lesson with the same material with my following 2nd grade class to make clean up easier. 

This was from Cassie Stephens blog. I will post more on this later. 

On day 3 we painted a base coat of paint on the dessert. Mixing was fun! 

Don't look at the carpet in my classroom, yes carpet. 

We made: milk chocolate, dark chocolate, vanilla, white, strawberry, cheesecake, pumpkin pie etc.

We used modge podge to add shine later. Most of the paints were crayola or prang temperas. 

I had some craft paints from home that I also added to the mix. 

Notice the caulk. We used it to add texture and hight. 

Day 4 was the topping or extras day. 

Beware....some kids started to derail here. Yikes!

We had to revisit our plan and stay on course. 

I mixed up drizzle in squirt bottle, used puffy paint and made a mixture of glue and shaving cream to create topping. White model magic seem to be one of the most popular as well as marshmallows. 

Craft foam was also popular for cut out limes, lemons and chocolates. 

Yes, we used real sprinkles too!

 I found the doilies at the Target Dollar Spot.

I started adding them to my display cases for open house and #bigartday17 

which this past Friday.

 My third graders made clay cupcakes and 4th grade made donuts with clay.

 Check back next week for a post on how we made them. 

Yummy. 

I love how well the collaborative display came together today. 

 

The fifth graders also did the gum ball art that you see in the background. 

That lesson is found in this previous blog with the cupcakes. 

Enjoy! We sure did. I can't wait for the parents to see this tomorrow!