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I didn't venture anywhere this spring break except into Dallas.  It has rained all week! Yesterday my husband treated me to a day at the museums and staying overnight at the  Hyatt Reunion. We even used Uber to go to dinner. We are living on the wild side!! My week started off with a surprise Birthday visit from my daughter who is a grad student at NYC.  we did some shopping at Northpark.... She stayed until Sunday and now is off to India for an  NYU field trip. (this explains why I am a nervous wreak this week) Anyway, she will do fine and is sharing many amazing pictures with us on Instagram ecarter5689 What would we do with out apps and social media. Speaking of which, a new Facebook Group was started yesterday for Art Teachers who Blog.  Are you in that group??? Back to my rainy week.... I had great plans to work out and plant my garden and I got about half that done.  I did bring my school I pads hom...

These two are best ever kids, and they were so nice to let me take their picture at 7 am.   Their mom is our Kinder teacher and  I have known them since they were born.  The art work is up, the open house is over, but the images remain. I created to photo booths for parents to take pictures of their kids and remember the night.  It is always a hit.  I am so glad I ordered these flags and letters earlier in the school year. I boxed up my letters to use again with my props. Michaels has the best wooden props! All of these props help since I needed to put it up quickly.  This year's open house was a Flower Themed event.  I was so proud of each grade level as they created some amazing works of art.  It was so nice to receive so many compliments from parents, teachers and kids!  Third grade slab vases with their lovely flowers, Sunflower pinch pots created by 2nd graders and 1st grad...

Our schedule has been a mess this week with picture day, the end of the 9 weeks, and Open House tomorrow. I decided to spend the rest of this week creating Dr. Seuss inspired art works. I modified a lesson that I had previously pinned from Patty at Deep Space Sparkle . My kinders and 1st grade did this lesson today one class period.  It was super fun and successful! I showed a video to introduce the book.  We then drew a forward facing fish or side fish on construction paper with black China markers.  The student's colored the details with oil pastels and then cut them out. The background was painted with Metallic Paint Sticks. They dry super quick so that you can glue it on right away.  Enjoy!

I was in need of a new third grade clay lesson.  I was over on the Facebook Art teachers group asking for ideas earlier this year,  and someone mentioned TP slab vases.  I love clay and I also love making slab raku vases!  This was a workshop I attended a few years ago with art teachers. This is one of my first raku fired pieces.  So here is what I did to give my kids the faux experience. These are pictures of the steps my student's did in two class periods. I wrapped a paper towel around the tube so it can be pulled out when leather hard. I pre-sliced a slab and cut that slab in half.  These rubber texture tools came from School Specialty many years ago. They rolled it on the slab. This helped stretch the clay so that they could overlap a seam. I really encouraged problem solving. A base was scored and slipped onto the bottom. After bisque firing they used two analogous neon oil pastels t...