AMAZING Arts Empower MEGA Conference

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I am one lucky art teacher – last week I got to attend the first ever Arts Empower MEGA Conference for San Diego County arts educators. It was flat-out AMAZING. There were 400 educators in all the arts disciplines – visual arts, theatre, dance and music. Our conference was in San Diego’s gorgeous Balboa Park, home to so many San Diego arts institutions.

Balboa Park is the home to many San Diego arts institutions

The San Diego Museum of Art in beautiful Balboa Park. Photo:

Our keynote session included an interview with young artist Inocente, subject of the Oscar-winning documentary Inocente. As a homeless teen in San Diego, Inocente discovered painting through a program at ARTS: A Reason to Survive. She and Matt D’Arrigo, founder of ARTS talked about the impact of the arts on young people

An interview with Inocente was a highlight of our morning keynote address. Photo source:

An interview with formerly homeless young artist Inocente was a highlight of our morning keynote address. Photo:

We had our choice of a huge variety of breakout sessions.  Guess what? You could attend any session, even if it wasn’t in your specialty.  Options included 3D theatre set design, teaching dance improvisation, and teaching music with an iPad. It was a great opportunity to ‘cross pollinate’ ideas across specialities.

Blended marker scratch foam print from Michelle Breyer's workshop

Blended marker scratch foam print from Michelle Breyer’s workshop

I presented for the very first time – one of my best sculpture lesson plans, ‘3D Olympic Sport Sculptures’. It went really well – we were able to create mounted sport trophies in under an hour! Even if you missed the session, you can still make your own trophy.  Click here for the trophy lesson plan.

Making trophy sculptures at my workshop

Gymnastics sports trophy

Local art teacher making a sport trophy sculpture

Local art teacher making a sport trophy sculpture

That’s me holding a sculpture made by a 5th grader. It matches my clothes!

Our dynamic closing session featured a live painting performance Stephen Fishwick set to student music and choreography, followed by a reception accompanied by jazz from San Diego Unified School District music teachers.

What a perfect day!

Thanks a million to Russ Sperling and the amazing folks at the San Diego County Office of Education, Arts Empower San Diego,  Art Pulse, Blick, Artists and Craftsmen, the San Diego Museum of Art, Mingei Museum, Museum of Photographic Arts and the Timken Museum, AERO (Art Education Resource Organization), Balboa Park Commons, SDCAEA, our local arts education associations and area museums for a wonderful conference.

Bonus: Here is a video of performance painter Stephen Fishwick!

 

 

No-Mess Kindergarten Line Art

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No-Mess Kindergarten Line Art

Are you looking for a nice line art project for your kindergarteners? Check out this project from Marcia Beckett at Art is Basic.

It is a great project. On the first day, our students watched a brief video about different kinds of lines. Then they used black marker to make a variety of lines on their papers.

On day 2, the students colored in and around their lines with Crayola markers. We had a few minutes to spare at the end of class, so we did a ‘line hunt’ in the classroom. The kids were delighted to find the horizontal lines everywhere, including the wires of my drying rack and my window blinds!

No-Mess Kindergarten Line Art 3

No-Mess Kindergarten Line Art 2

Here is my kindergarten line movie playlist on YouTube.  (note: two of these movies are silent!)

Enjoy!

Read the ‘Pigeon’ Books Online (for Free!)

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read the 'pigeon' books online for free

Do you have Mo Willem’s ‘Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!‘? Maybe you have the book, maybe you don’t.

Guess what? I did a little searching and found ALL  of Mo Willem’s ‘pigeon’ books read online.

Here is a my resource mix for the project, organized in this nifty Symbaloo grid. Click on any tile to read the books. There’s even a bonus ‘how to draw the pigeon’ guide.

Isn’t technology cool?

Click here to see my pigeon project for first grade.

Enjoy!

p.s. These are not a substitute for a cozy bedtime story! Go get the books for bedtime 🙂

Don’t Let the Pigeon….

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Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus art project for first grade

Our first graders love Mo Willem’s books Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! and The Pigeon Wants a Puppy. In both books, the pigeon asks repeatedly for something he’s too young to handle. Of course little kids like this book – it’s the story of their lives!

After reading the stories, we brainstormed all the things the pigeon should NOT do. Every idea was hilarious – the pigeon shouldn’t do karate, use the oven, use the iPad, feed the beta fish or drive Santa’s sleigh.

First graders did a directed draw of the pigeon, focusing on simple shapes. On a separate piece of copy paper, then drew a picture of the pigeon acting out those bad choices.

Materials:

  • 9″x12″ gray construction paper
  • yellow and white Construction Paper Crayons
  • Sharpie
  • 12″x18″ construction paper for background
  • scissors
  • glue sticks
  • copy paper, 8.5″x11″
  • crayons or markers

Day 1: Read books. Discuss the pigeon. Pass out copy paper. Use your crayons or markers to draw something the pigeon should not be doing.

Day 2: Draw pigeon on gray construction paper using Sharpie and construction paper crayons.

Now cut out the pigeon. Glue the pigeon and drawing to a large piece of colored construction paper. Use Sharpie to draw legs on the paper.

First grade results:

Don't let the pigeon use the pizza app on the iPad.

Don’t let the pigeon use the pizza app on the iPad.

Don't let the pigeon go to halloween ('Aah! a ghost!').

Don’t let the pigeon go to halloween (‘Aaa! a ghost!’).

Don't let the pigeon be your mom or he will make you do silly things.

Don’t let the pigeon be your mom or she will make you do silly things.

Don't let the pigeon take care of a beta fish or it will die.

Don’t let the pigeon take care of a beta fish or it will die.

This project was a hit with my students last year – click here to see more examples.

Enjoy!

Too Much Glue! Collage for Kindergarten

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too much glue collage for kindergarten

Here is a fun and easy kindergarten collage project based on the new book, Too Much Glue.
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Too Much Glue by Matt LeFebre, 2013.

 

Materials:

  • construction paper 12″x18″
  • scissors
  • glue sticks
  • construction paper crayons
  • homemade glue sponges, one per table
  • colored paper scraps (we used origami paper scraps)
  • photocopies of ‘glue suit’ clothing template (click here for pdf)

Day 1: Read book, begin portrait

Read the story. Pass out paper clothing. Students cut out the paper suit and use glue stick to glue it in the center of the construction paper (this is a great opportunity to assess your students cutting skills).

Use construction paper crayons to make face, hair, hands and feet.

Day 2: Create collage clothing

In the story, Matty used so much glue that everything stuck to him. For our project, we collaged our paper clothes with pieces of colored paper. Kindergarteners had success using our new glue sponges for collage.

glue sponge shared at a table

Kindergarten results:

Kindergarteners use paper scraps, template and glue sponge to make collage portraits. Allow two 40 minute classes.

Kindergarteners use paper scraps, template and glue sponge to make collage portraits. Allow two 40 minute classes.

too much glue collage

(You know what?  I think that free downloadable glue suit template would be a great start for a scarecrow collage project)

Enjoy!

 

Note: I received an advance copy of ‘Too Much Glue’.

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