"Grumpy Monkey" Portraits

I just love finding great books to teach with art lessons. And to top it off, this book is great when adding in emotions to artwork. When these are complete, they are absolutely hilarious and adorable. 

2nd Grade "Grumpy Monkey"

There are tons of "Read-A-Louds" on YouTube of this book. I of course always purchase the book and I read this aloud to my students. But have included a read-a-loud in my lesson. 

We discuss EMOTIONS and COLOR and how they can make a person feel when looking at art. I also like to introduce them to other works of art that portray emotions and we discuss them before starting this lesson. 

When designing art projects, I try to be creative with technique & medium. This one is fun because they CAN NOT use a paintbrush to paint with. The kids LOVE it!  

I love this little video of a student painting her artwork, lol:) 

Check out this lesson on my TPT shoppe:) "Art is My Jam"!

Grumpy Monkey Portraits TPT 

 

"Bitmoji Fever" Google Slides

I've been working hard on creating a faster digital workflow for students and myself. Check out my new cover and I'm adding lots of links to enhance their learning. Here's a preview and I'll have it "live" soon :)

Art is my Jam! Virtual Classroom 

 

Mulga inspired "Parrots"

I did a lot of research and found a few new artists that I've been following and absolutely LOVE! Mulga is one of them because of the bright colors and fun paintings he creates with animals. He also has a book and this link will take you to the link to buy it. 

This lesson I created for my 3rd graders. It was a tough lesson because they had to do this following my videos on their own. They also got choices in what type of shoes their parrot is wearing, the sunglasses style and what he/she was eating. 

This lesson will be posted on my TPT Shoppe soon. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have in creating and implementing it.  

Jen Aranyi inspired...

Mason Jars and Mountainscapes! Remember the new art lessons I was working on? Here is one of them. Look at the amazing results from my 4th graders.

This lesson they totally completed on their own using the link provided. I was so proud of them and they absolutely loved being able to do this on their own. 

Below is the QR Code for the lesson from my previous post. You will need to have Google Slides to view and inside the slides are links to videos and handouts that will be helpful. 

Mason Jar Watercolors based of the artist Jen Aranyi

4th Grade Examples

Digital Self-Portraits

I have to admit, when I started working on this project, I wasn't sure how it would turn out. It is one of my "original" art lessons and I was so excited to try it out and I have to say the results were so awesome. 

I'm LOVING the APP Green Screen by DoInk! 

Here's the link to the step-by-step instructions for teachers on my TPT Shoppe. 

Bringing AR to the Art Room

Augmented Reality (AR) is a huge thing right now and the students love it.   I was having a hard time trying to find ways to incorporate it into the art room without taking away too much of our creative time teaching it. And, I found a few great ways to make both things happen and I'm totally excited about it. 

The first was an app called "Quiver" which is limited but it gets kids excited about AR and ways to use it.  I used it to introduce 4th and 5th graders to the concept. 

The second is an app and desktop version called "Metaverse" which is also limited but it has some fun features. It's more teacher friendly than student. Here's an example of the piece I created. Just scan the QR code with the Metaverse App and see an example. This one is very simple and I'll post more later:) 

The third is an app and desktop version called "EyeJack". This one is by far the BEST one I've come across. I'm so excited about the things this AR tool offers for artists. My students will be creating pieces soon with this. So stay tuned for a post about this app and how it can be incoporated into the art room. 

YouTube Videos

How I use YouTube for all my expectations, procedures and lessons.

I've written about organization and set-up a few times because I'm a huge believer in having your room organized. One thing I've been doing since I started teaching is creating short videos, slideshows or use photos to show students expectations and procedures in the art room. 

• One reason I started this is because they really like watching a video better than listening to me talk. Keep it short and sweet.
• Second, as an art teacher you repeat things to a ton of different classes and this helps with the "broken record" phobia, lol. 
• Third, you can use the time during the video (while it's playing) to set things ups, hand out supplies, monitor students, etc... and keep the flow of the class going. 
• Lastly, the videos can be paused and replayed easily by you or your students. Great for using with students who need a refresher, who were absent and who need that extra time to see how something is done. 

Here's just one of my simplier videos that I use to help with "hand washing" because we know the sink area can be crazy without expectations and proedures in place. 

My YouTube channel is "private" for the most part. I hope to upload some videos soon of lessons that I've created and use in my art room. You can always check out the printed versions in my TPT Shoppe "Art is My Jam"! Enjoy :)