Student Concours May 2015. Work from the classes of Ronnie Landfield, Richard Barnet, William Scharf, and Oscar Garcia for the week of May 4–9, 2015.

Yayoi Kusama for Louis Vuitton

As a rule...when the weather is beautiful...I like to take all my painting supplies and make a huge colorful mess outside. For creating my Torn Paper Paintings, I need to keep a full supply of papers painted up in many colors and designs to be used for when I start each painting. A good ongoing supply is important so that I don't always have to make more at the last minute....and living in New England...painting outdoors isn't possible year round. Today was one of those awesome painting days. My favorite papers to turn into colorful collections are my rice papers and old book & music pages. Along with my watercolor and acrylic paints.....my other favorite tool is my Gelli Plate!! I have two sizes...so my larger one goes outside with me! (click on the pics to see them larger) After many hours of a fun filled afternoon I not only had a lovely collection of new papers to work with....but a nice new collection of colorful envelopes as well!! You see....the second pull on a plate is generally called the "ghost" pull....so, rather than make those pulls on another paper....I used white envelopes....a bonus!! Now I'm looking forward to sending out some beautiful mail !!!

I LOVE these little houses. Shannon used architecture as a theme, and showed them all different forms of columns, turrets, roofs, and made a geometry connection. Students made cone roofs, triangular prism roofs, rectangular prisms and cubes for the bottom part, and tiny spheres for the rocks around the doors. They also used lots of items like rocks and texture plates for texture on the house that look really cool after glazing. Yesterday one of my friend and fellow art teachers from http://www.missartclass.blogspot.com/ (under construction) came over and showed me some cool clay samples for IDEAS since I am trying to focus on lay this year! Below is a “nature pocket” with a sun, a flower and a butterfly. There is a pocket under the green part to hang and put flowers in it!! These are giant clay belt buckles painted with gold and silver tempra. They even have the buckle attachment on the back! They were cut from a slab. This is a tile painted with watercolor made to look like a view from a broken window. They clay sucks up the watercolor so fast it doesn’t have time to drip in the cracks. These fish were textured using those plastic texture plates usually used for crayon rubbings!! The leather cord adds a nice organic looking touch!! I use my texture plates for lots of different things. They are great to have in the art room! Christmas cookie ornament. This is a great project for kinder. Shannon places all kinds of objects on the table (shells macaroni, sticks, legos,little toys, rocks, beads, marker tops) She precuts the clay slab with a biscuit cutter and puts the children’s name already on the back. She uses a translucent white glaze called pearl as the icing (she said this example had way too much glaze and that usually you can see the imprints much better) I also love this idea of making pinch pot fish and pinch pot monsters. Just make a pinch pot, turn it on its side and add eyes, fins, antenae, scales, texture, tails, claws arms, wings, ect.!! This summer I learne some awesome new things at my Mayco glaze inservice. One thing that BLEW MY MIND was that you can paint glaze on WET or bone dry CLAY!!! YEEEES you DO NOT have to fire it before glazing! The pot below was made with the COOLEST glaze by Mayco called cobblestone. First paint your sculpture with black foundation glaze, the two coats of mayco cobblestone, then one thin coat of ANY OLOR. The cobblestone makes the color break into little raised cobblestone like shapes and then the black shows through the cracks! Its AMAZING! Below are the SUPER POPULAR “Jungle Gems” crystal glazes by Mayco. The glazes have little chunks in them that explode and melt into little color specs after fired! They look so cool and if you want the background color to be different. You can paint a coat of a darker color on top and the color gems will show through. We used the orangy one below but put black foundations on top to that the little red, yellow and green flecks will show on a black background. I found this project on the Mayco website. I think it would be cute with pinch pots! Then they could add the bird. It would even be cool to put blue marbles inside to melt the glass and look like water!!! It is good to crush the marbles in a sock with a hammer first. I hope you liked these clay ideas as much as I did! Let me know if you use any of them and post pics of your results! You can order Mayco glazes and see lots of other cool clay projects http://maycocolors.com/index.html

I got this lesson from http://kidsartists.blogspot.com and just had to make them with my 5th graders! The main focuss was on texture. I put out boxes of stuff and the kids had a great time stacking their sandwich items. First, we made the table cloth and plate. Next, we added the bun which is made from torn up cardboard, so that the ridges show. Then they had to fill the space between the buns! The kids had to be reminded that the items had to look like a food item. They couldn't just glue pink tissue paper on "just because."

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Creativity is contingent on willingness to be judged. At some point, many people lose that.

Hey teacher friends, Have you seen this tumblr website? http://heygirlteacher.tumblr.com/ A friend sent it to me tonight, and I think it's amazing. My current favorite... ...only because I hand in weekly data reflections, and so as soon as I'm done with this post, I'll be reflecting on how/if I need to reteach. In other news, last week Tanya at Ms. Solano's Kindergarten Class tagged me! This game of tag=time for me to answer some questions! GAME.ON. Here are the rules: 1. You must post the rules. 2. Post 12 fun facts about yourself on the blog post. 3. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and then create 12 new questions for the people you tagged. 4. Tag 12 people and link them on your post. 5. Let them know you've tagged them! 12 Fun Facts About Me: 1. I just celebrated 5 years cancer-free on January 29th! Woohoo! 2. Related to #1, my hair has gotten pretty long now, and sometimes it drives me crazy, because I feel like I'm shedding everywhere! This whole having long hair thing=quite a novelty. 3. I just (as in 30 seconds ago) killed a fly on my computer--okay, not necessarily a fun fact, but I have a huge fear of bugs so this is quite impressive! 4. I have a tendency to overeat fruits and vegetables. As in, I shop at Costco and buy the giant thing of peaches...but eat them all myself. I also may or may not overeat other types of foods ;) but fruits and veggies=my weakness. 5. Related to #4, tomorrow I reembark on my P90X challenge. I started at the end of September, but then some not so great things happened (as in my mom passed away so I flew home), and I ended up eating lots of cheesecake and ice cream instead of working out... :P 6. I drive a MINI Cooper Convertible. I think it's the best thing ever, and I sometimes fear I'll keep my car beyond when I should reasonably keep it, because I love it so much. Sometimes, when I'm feeling inspired by The Italian Job, my commute to work is very short! 7. I signed off Facebook a month ago...and I have a feeling I may have missed several people getting engaged (because apparently that's what everyone I know is doing), but I don't miss it! However, I realized this week I need to email all my friends for their birthdays, otherwise I'll miss them! 8. I just purchased some awesome clip art and fonts, and I hope I can start making things for TPT soon! 9. I am an awful cook (though I'm trying), but I love baking. I like how precise and specific baking is--if I follow the recipe to a T, it works out. 10. I live in LA, and for the first time this morning I felt like I semi-fit in in my neighborhood (which is uber-hipster). I was in Trader Joe's and noticed I was one of 10 people wearing TOMS and an American Apparel hoodie. I won't be busting out the skinny jeans anytime soon, but it's about time I started to look a little more LA-ish. I'm trying to show restraint by not buying a new pair of TOMS ballet flats as much as I want them! 11. I watched 50/50 a week ago, and I have to tell you, weirdest glimpse into my life ever. Did I mention my mom had Alzheimer's? Yeah, that was a bizarre movie to watch--I highly recommend it though!! Loved it. 12. I discovered that if I go to the ampm by my house I can refill any cup of mine with diet coke for 99 cents. Yikes. Still no diet coke in my house, but I do love a good sip of fountain dc on my way to school! Now to answer Tanya's questions... 1. Hands down, the best song ever is....? Bah. Too tricky. In honor of my love for the Cubs, Go Cubs Go! 2. When is your birthday? December 27, 1986! 3. What's the biggest need you have in your classroom? Right now, we have a lot of work to do with concepts of print in some of my small groups. My students' writing and reading is being dramatically impacted by what they see when they look at words--I can't figure out what it is they see, but they are pointing to letters, "reading" left to right, just not attending to the actual words and the sounds the letters make. 4. Do you have a night out each week, or month? I try for each week...weekends=much easier than weekdays, but weekday nights out make me so happy! 5. What do you do on your night out? Sushi. Margaritas. Friends. :) 6. The perfect vacation would be...? Australia. Beach. Calmness. Let's go. 7. Your favorite cartoon growing up was....? Animalympics and The Great American Rabbit. Anyone know what I'm talking about? :) 8. Single? Married? Kids? Single. No babies. Not really eager to get married either. I like my life as is! 9. If you could have any super human power, what would it be? And, why? Disease curer--cause there are lots of diseases that we really need to cure. Ahem, Alzheimer's and cancer, I would kick your butts if I had a disease curer super human power. 10. Your favorite recipe? {please share} Pasta salad...not a real recipe per se...but super easy to make and super yummy: 1 box tricolor pasta+red peppers+orange peppers+cherry tomatoes+celery+(red onion if you like--I don't)+broccoli+Italian dressing. Yum. 11. Do you have restrooms and a sink in your classroom? Nope! My classroom wasn't built as a classroom...so no sink or restrooms. 12. What is your biggest pet peeve? I don't know what is my biggest pet peeve...but a recent one: reply all emails that don't need to be replied all. I'm awful with replying to my email, and when I have emails popping up that aren't even for me, I am even worse about replying! Here are the 12 blogs I've tagged: Teaching Happily Ever After Step Into Second Grade with Mrs. Lemons What the Teacher Wants Thirst for First Teaching and Learning Make the World Go Round Pencils, Glue, and Tying Shoes The Inspired Apple First Grader at Last Darlin' in First The Teacher Wife The First Grade Parade (even though she just got tagged I couldn't resist--I love this blog!) Lesson Plan SOS ...and last but not least my questions for all of you: 1. What is your favorite TV show? 2. What is your must have food/drink to keep you going during the day? 3. Tell us your most recent student story that made you laugh out loud. 4. Favorite store... 5. Fill-in-the-blank: I can't live without _____. 6. What kind of school do you teach at? Public, charter, private, independent? 7. How many students are in your class? 8. Website you visit every day without fail. 9. One thing that's on your bucket list. 10. What's one thing you are focused on becoming better at as teacher? 11. How many teachers are at your school, and how many are male vs. female? 12. What's one thing that made you feel lucky/blessed/happy today? Now off to bed before I fall asleep while typing! love, a

For lovers of history and culture, art and music, a museum is the best place to view relics from ancient time. Museums are known places to explore the culture and heritage of a particular city or nation. Typically, museums provide an avenue for interested visitors to explore the history and the important events that have […]

10 Architectural Marvels to Inspire Your Teaching % %

had to. everyone seems to be sick right now. i saw these done a few other ways...and decided to wing it. they crack me up.

Life never ends, but duality must.

A house form is high in the visual vocabulary of Patti Roberts-Pizzuto. Patti's works are calm, created over time layering papers with painting and hand stitching.

Straight Stitching Letters Satin Stitch

What's the difference between projects and PBL? In PBL, the focus is not on projects but the process of learning through them.

Picasso, 1919 Picasso - is there any better artist for inspiration? I really like talking about his work in my classes, especially the part about why he chose to work in the styles he did. One of the few artists to know fame and fortune during his own lifetime, we begin by looking at Picasso's earlest, and most realistic, works. Portrait of the Artist's Mother, painted when Picasso was only 15 years old Next, we look at later works and discusss the style differences. Picasso had such a creative mind that simply recreating real life images became boring for him. He wanted to share what was in his mind and imagination, in ways you can't produce with a camera. Cubism is a style he invented - a way of taking apart the shapes of an object, rearranging and simplifying them, and putting them back together in an interesting way. Here are two Picasso works that are related to the guitar. Now it's time to get started. This is the second time I have taught this lesson, and I simplified it this year in order to make a few concepts really hit home. We begin with a contour line drawing from a real guitar, and note the neutral colors. We add a pop of bright color in the negative space for contrast, and cut the positive shape (guitar) from the negative. The final step is arranging the two compositions made from the original guitar drawing. We use a positive shape, a negative shape, and other papers that go with the theme - sheet music, swirly lines, wood grain texture, pages from old books, etc. - to make our collages. Picasso made probably the first collage, laughing that he could make art from the contents of a wastebasket! Please enjoy our Cubist guitar collages, full of energy and thinking and freshness!

We had so much fun with this simple building activity that combined three materials you may have sitting around the house; wood, glue and paint. I try to expose Gigi (and D as much as possible but…

This project is inspired by Swiss artist Paul Klee's (1879-1940) painting 'Senecio ' (1922). My grade ones are learning about Pa...

my 4th graders are! marker drawn owls on re-purposed encyclopedia pages. (and i figured it was time i get back to my rotation and add kid art to my stream again). hope everyone is have an awesome wednesday.

I found this great book awhile ago and I've finally gotten around to trying out one of the crafts inside it: Those pretty paper bowls on the cover are what caught my attention, and they looked so easy, so I thought I'd throw some of my own together. I have to tell you though, I think this project looks easier than it really is because I'm not totally happy with the end result. But take a look below and let me know what you think... Here's what you need:  Add a few things: a disposable plastic container to mix glue in, some newsprint to keep your work surface clean, and a rubber spatula (trust me) Steps: 1) I covered my work surface with some old newspaper so that I wouldn't get glue all over everything. Then I took my two sheets of heavy duty scrapbooking paper to work with me and sent it through the big paper shredder so that I'd get a pile of evenly cut strips. If you don't have access to a shredder you can use an electronic cutter or just do it the old fashioned way with scissors. 2) Cover your mixing bowl with plastic wrap, making sure that the entire outside surface is 100% completely covered. You don't want glue all over your good mixing bowls. 3) Next take your white glue and mix it with water in a disposable container. The book says that it's very important to follow the recipe of 2 parts glue 1 part water and not to guess. Of course, I guessed, which may have been my first mistake, but who wants to measure out glue in their good measuring cups?!?!? I just used some cheapo glue from the Big W and I wonder if this was actually my first mistake. This cheapy glue was pretty watered down to begin with so I probably could've gone a little lighter on the water. 4) Anyway, onwards and upwards.... Now that your bowl is covered and your glue is mixed you can start creating your paper bowl. Start by spreading some paste on the bottom of your "bowl mold" and add some shortened strips of paper to create a base. Just keep adding glue and paper until your bottom is where you want it, adding paste on the top of the paper as well. 5) Start adding longer strips to the sides, overlapping and creating interesting patterns with your strips. 6) As I got going I realized that because the glue was so thin it was dripping right down onto the newsprint and I could just imagine the entire thing getting stuck there. So I put a vase underneath to get it off the table. This worked well because it made it easier to rotate. 7) Just keep adding more and more glue and more and more paper strips. I kept going back and forth between worrying that the strange watered down glue mixture was either not going to hold anything together or that they whole thing would be so stuck I'd never get my mixing bowl back. My pessimism won out and I gave some parts a coat of pure unwatered down glue. And yes, it's possible that this was my next mistake. In any case, I continued until the whole thing was covered and I was actually getting quite excited by what I was seeing. Next, you just let it dry. Mine took less than 24 hours, even with all of the extra glue on it. 8) And now for the hard part...getting your mixing bowl back from the glue gods. I'm not sure if I wrapped my plastic too tight, if my paper was too thick, or I just used too much glue but I ended up having to use a rubber spatula to pry the papered plastic off of my glass bowl. It wasn't like it was a McGyver type of conundrum but I was worried that the paper strips would tear and then KABLOOM the whole thing would blow. Kidding, that's right I did say NOT McGyver, so no, nothing would've happened if the paper had torn except maybe a few expletives that are not meant for little cat ears. 9) If you're able to pry the whole thing off now you have to get the plastic wrap off of the paper. This was another worry I had, how would it not stick?!!? It's glued down to paper! Can you see it? I got most of it off but I still need to do some snipping. I'm not crazy about it~ But, like I said, last night while I my fingers were already covered in glue I figured I'd experiment a bit and tried another smaller bowl using paper doilies. At first glance it looks pretty neat. But here's another view: In trying to pry it off of the mold it ripped and tore apart. When I was making it I was so pleased that the thinner paper was going on so well and creating this beautiful lacey effect. But the thin paper turned on me and became my enemy in the end. Boo hoo~ I had dreams of making loads of these bowls, maybe using ribbons or strips of fabric or maybe even something organic like leaves or flower petals. Now I'm not so sure I'll give it another go. I know, I know, try try again but I have so many other things I want to make that I think I'll actually be pleased with, so a third try on this one might not happen. I may give the book another chance yet and try one of the other fun looking projects...we'll see. For now, I give you my version of a paper bowl, which is probably not half as bad as I think it is right now. I just have to let go of my vision of millions of beautiful paper bowls all over my house. (Probably a good thing in the end.) Pin It Has anyone else out there tried projects from this book? Made paper bowls? Any tips or tricks? I keep wondering if this would work with Mod Podge. I wonder if the plastic would become a permanent part of the bowl though. Darn it, so many questions and ideas.... I may have to give this another try in the end~

This is a lesson that was done by one of my student teachers several years ago, Jennifer O'neal. Originally, we did this with 4th and 5th graders. I believe we spent at least 3, 50 minute sessions on this project. I was a great project, because once we got the major features done, the kids were free to decorate their birds as they wished. We had hula birds, superhero birds, ballerina birds, ninja birds...so in other words, the possibilities were endless. I did these once again with my art campers this summer. We didn't get to spend the time on them I had hoped for, but they still came out really cute.

Okay. So. I started ANOTHER mural project. I got the idea this weekend when I suddenly realized that Valentine's Day was this Saturday and I needed something to wear (other than last year's Catty-Valentine Dress and Poodle-Love Frock. Cuz there's more than just two days in a week, y'all). So I decided that I'd create an artist-themed Valentine's dress (with an emphasis on hearts. Can you guess who my inspo might be? Virtual high five to the winner! I'll share my dress later this week). And whilst I was working on that, I got this Big Fat Hairy Light Bulb Above My Head that everyone in our school should create a heart for what we are dubbing The Johnson Elementary School has Heart mural! Yippie! There's only one prob. We're already in the middle of our Village of Kindness mural. Now, what you might not know about me is that I like to work on, like, twenty things at once. In fact, at home right now, I've got three dresses in the works, a painting and a felted number. I get an idea, I act on it right away before the excitement fades and the motivation is gone. It drives me crazy, having so many projects everywhere and, yet, it's how I live my life. It's also how I run my art room. I ain't braggin'. I'm just sayin'. More on that in a pinch. For now, lemme show you what every grade level is up to for our mural! Mural Measurements: So for our mural, I'm using these two huge sheets of foam core that were donated to me. They're about 3' X 6'. I went to the school nurse on Monday cuz I heard she was really good at the math. After a lil clicking away on her calculator, she told me that if each of our 366 students created a work of art that was 3.25" we'd have our boards covered. Great, now, what will each create? First Grade Painted and Puffy Paint Outlined Hearts: Now I happen to be the owner of a cache of felt. I dunno where I got it from but I have a ton. Because I want this mural to hang for a while, I didn't wanna use fade-tastic construction paper. So I thought for most of the projects, I'd use up that felt. A lovely helper mama and a sweet unsuspecting art education student were promptly put to work on cutting the squares out. I do want some consistency with our hearts. So, for first grade, they used chalk to trace a heart template (I know you template-haters are having a heart attach. Get it, HEART attach!? Lawd, I shoulda been a comedian). After tracing, they were instructed to use the warm colors for the heart and the cool for the background. Once finished, they outlined their heart in their choice of puffy paint. This took us all of 25 minutes. Second Grade Yarn-Bombed Hearts: Because I didn't want this to interrupt our previously scheduled program, I wanted these to only take us 25 minutes. Most managed with a coupla minutes to spare. After picking out their felt color and pipe cleaner, they folded their pipe cleaner in half. The heart templates were on the tables for them to lay their pipe cleaner on top of and mold around the shape. They created an X in the middle where the two wires overlapped and then twisted. The cool thing about the pipe cleaner is that the kids didn't really have to tie the string on because of the grippy-ness of the 'cleaner. A wee bit of knot-tying was needed but these kids had recently finished Ojo de Dios so knot tying is no biggie for them. Once finished, I hot glued them to their felt fabric. Third grade Stitched Hearts: Now I do see my third and fourth graders for an hour. We jumped right in. These dudes have used my sewing machines before and a couple of them are in my after school sewing club but most are inexperienced. They were thrilled to learn! I started by having them trace the square in chalk and the heart in the Sharpie color they planned to stitch with. After that, they were to hoop their design before returning to the floor for instruction. There I showed 'em how to thread their needle and start stitching. These guys totally nailed it. I think third grade must be the right age to really start in with stitchin' stuff. Our tapestry needles were too small to sew the button so we just glued them on. Later, I'll have to trim these guys to add them to the mural. Fourth Grade Needle Felting: Y'all know I loves me some needle felting. I've always been apprehensive to give it a go with the kids because of the razor sharp needles used. So I started the class by saying the following: "Today we are going to use a dangerous tool [gasps from the girls] because we are dangerous artists [cheers from the boys]. I'm not kidding. There might be blood [pin-drop silence]." That being said, we only had one bleeder. Which is pretty good if you ask me. I've taught adults before and there's been more casualties. Again, we traced. The kids were told they could either use all cold colors for their heart or all warm. And then reverse that for the outside of their hearts. We did bust several needles but the results were pretty spectacular. Kindergarten Watercolor Resist Hearts: So my kindergarten friends have been painting all year. We are, like, experts. However, this was our first time to venture into watercolor paint town. So I was a little nervous. We talked a lot about the dif between watercolor and tempera. I emphasized that watercolor is translucent, not opaque. After tracing their heart template in black, they added designs in oil pastel before using the warm colors to paint. They turned out lovely and the kids loved using a new medium. And there you have it. Yet another mural started. It's so funny cuz when my parent volunteer and student assistant came in yesterday morning and I told 'em the mural news, the convo went down like this: Helper Mama: Wait a minute. Another mural? [eyeing the houses on the floor]. Me: Uh-huh! Student Assistant: You mean, before the other mural is finished [exchanging a worried look with the mama]? Me: Yup! Crazy has no bounds, y'all. Wish me luck and lemme be the first to wish ya Happy Valentine's Day!

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Clay fish platter by Allison Kids love clay! There’s just something about getting your hands covered with mud that kids can’t resist! Clay is a great medium for learning about texture and form, and its possibilities are endless. Here are my directions for this fun fish platter…. a perfect summer project!Directions:1. Draw a fun fish …

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It's the last week of art class and the weather is lovely. For their final project, the 5th and 6th graders did observational drawings of the weeds in our school garden. Materials: Clipboards Copy paper Colored pencils Weeds Each student picks one weed from the ground. They should try to keep the root intact. Weeds must be no longer than the paper. Clip paper to board, then clip top of weed to the left side of the board (left-handed kids should clip weed on the right). Draw a scale drawing of the weed. Start with a long stem line. Mark leaf placement with short lines alone the stem line. Then draw the contour of the leaves. Look closely at the leaf veins and draw them. Add flowers and roots. Finally, draw irregularities such as bite marks. What a fabulous way to end the art year. We practiced our drawing skills and weeded the garden path. Bonus! Happy summer! Enjoy! \ Share this:EmailPrintGoogleFacebookTwitterMoreStumbleUpon

No matter what your passion is in life, I bet the seed was planted when you were young. One summer, when I was probably 10i-sh, my grandmother taught me how to embroider. And I've loved creating stuff with fabric and thread since. This year, I decided to open up my art room to the folks I work with for a Sewing Group. Some of my 4th grade students caught wind of this and wanted to know if they could join. I kinda put the idea on the back burner as I had no freakin' idea how I'd use sewing machines with the youngins...and I kinda thought the kids would forget about it. But, as you know if you work with children, they never forget anything. When one of them started pricing sewing machines at the local thrift store and another petitioned her friends to enquire about a class, I started to toy with the idea of making it happen. When I accidentally said, "I'll think about it," the kids cheered and asked, "Yay, can we start TODAY?!" There is a wonderful enrichment program at my school called Gentry's Educational Foundation founded by Evelyn Hickerson, a teacher. I approached her about teaching a sewing class and she agreed to purchase some sewing machines. Because she's seriously that awesome. This woman is so dedicated to the education of all students that she'll stop at nothing to make it happen. We are so fortunate to have her enriching all of our lives. In my after school sewing class, I had almost 20 students (3rd and 4th grade) and two adult helpers. I was a little nervous having that many children sewing on machines at once...and I also felt like the kids should have some basic sewing and embroidery skills first. So I decided to start by having the kids create an embroidered sampler using this book as my guide. I picked up this book years ago when I wanted to teach sewing in my art classes. I've since had to let go of that notion (30 minutes just seemed impossible to teach sewing to the under 10 set) but was thrilled to give it a go with this group. My after school classes were a lovely 60 minutes in length and that felt like absolute heaven. No rush, plenty of time to explain, chat and sew. Interested in giving this a go? Here's what we used: Gingham fabric Patterned fabric Embroidery floss, 24" in length, split into three strands Bees wax. This isn't necessary but it does come in handy. We ran our embroidery floss over the wax to prevent it from tangling. Large eyed, sharp needles Embroidery hoops Graph paper Sewing machine Pins Stuffing Our first of business was writing out our names. We first did this on graph paper using the guide found in the book. This was then rewritten onto the kids' chosen piece of gingham in pencil. Next we learned how to split our embroidery floss. I had the kids work with a partner to prevent the floss from tangling. This was then threaded into the needle, doubled over and knotted. After that, we hooped our fabric. We didn't embroider our name first. We chatted about what a sampler was and how this would showcase a sample of embroidery stitches we learned. Our first stitches to learn were the running stitches seen under the name. Once those were complete, we moved onto cross-stitching our name. Some students sewed buttons onto their sampler while others learned how to create a satin stitched heart. All that took a couple of sewing classes to complete. Once they were finished, the kids chose a piece of fabric for the back of their pillow. Thankfully I'd just been donated a huge stash of fabric (which included some coveted Scooby Doo fabric). The kids laid their samplers on the fabric, cut it to the same size and pinned it right sides together on the top and sides. We left the bottom open for adding the stuffing. Now I wasn't at all comfortable with the idea of the kids sewing for the first time without adult supervision. This is where my two super adult sewers came into the picture. They called each child one at a time to a machine and gave them a private sewing lesson. Perhaps in the future I'll be more comfortable leaving the kids less supervised...but until then, I'm all about the one-on-one. So what were the others doing in the meantime? Well, they set their pillows aside and began creating mini-stuffed animals! In My First Sewing Book, the author gives a ton of animal patterns for the kids to chose from. I simply enlarged them and laid them out for the kids to pick from. Of course, I gave them the option of creating their own stuffies too (see last photo, ya'll. Too cute). With that sampler under their sewing belt, this proved to be the perfect project for them to work independently on while they waited for their turn at the machine. For a Stuffie, you'd need the following: Two pieces of felt per student Embroidery floss Needle Thread Pins Patterns (or paper for creating their own) Stuffing After picking their pattern, the kids pinned the pattern and two pieces together. This was then cut out. After removing the pins, the kids were told they had to use a satin stitch to create a face. Buttons were available for eyes. Once that was complete, the two felt pieces were pinned together and stitched almost all the way around with a whip stitch. Stuffing was added and the stuffie was stitched closed. Most kids were able to create more than one. When their turn was up at the sewing machine, they stitched those three pinned sides. Stuffing was added to the pillow and they had the option of hand-stitching the pillow closed or using the machine again. I was surprised that not all of the kids picked the machines. I think some of them really enjoyed the control of stitching by hand. Since completing these stuffies, the kids have started bringing in things they've sewn at home. They've independently created purses, pin cushions and stuffies for their buddies and siblings. Which makes me so super happy. And excited. I've already started my yearly process of begging for longer art classes next year so I can do this with all my students, not just an after school class. I know how much I loved creating like this when I was a kid...and I want all of my students to have this very same experience. Do ya'll sew in your art room? Would you mind sharing with me the projects you do? I'd love to have more ideas and share them with my sewing group! Thanks, ya'll!

We always knew that Zentangle was great for developing fine motor skills. Jella Verelst, CZT in Belgium, reinforces that view with this email: I challenged my students to draw a ‘first Zentangle’ again after 9 months. (same string, same tangles) They could see with their own eyes how Zentangle improves fine motor skills. Thank you for sending that Jella. Jella's website is here.