Vol. 4, No. 273, September 30, 2019

4273 - Lying Low.

Tomorrow begins my next Creative Sprint, so I decided to take a small break today and do a photo collage. Over the weekend, I spent some time outside with my puppy niece, Ziva. She loves playing catch with her orange frisbee. I snapped these fun action shots while we played.

Vol. 4, No. 272, September 29, 2019

4272 - Celebration.

Today we celebrated a lot at our house, the most important celebration (just kidding) was National Coffee Day. I celebrate by drinking multiple cups of coffee and making an origami coffee mug.

Vol. 4, No. 271, September 28, 2019

4271 - Color Blind.

Yesterday, as my students worked, so did I. I took one of my not-so-blind contour line drawings and started coloring it. We used watercolor colored pencils, mostly because they take slightly longer than plain watercolors.

Vol. 4, No. 270, September 27, 2019

4270 - Line Dance.

My Kinders are in the middle of a unit on lines. This rotation, students traveled to stations exploring lines in different ways. One station had rocks with lines painted on them. The first step was to sort the lines by type, straight, curvy, or both. When they were finished sorting, students could connect the rocks to make a long crazy line. I wanted an example for the board, so I did the center on my own.

Vol. 4, No. 269, September 26, 2019

4269 - More Faces.

New class of seventh graders, new group of faces. I had more time to draw today and was able to complete 13 blind contour portraits.

Vol. 4, No. 268, September 25, 2019

4268 - Blind Buddies.

Today my 7th graders drew their blind contour self-portraits. As they worked, so did I; I moved around the room drawing their portraits, demonstrating correct blind contour techniques. The students were amazed and everyone was begging for a portrait. Unfortunately, we ran out of time. Here are the seven portraits I was able to make today.

Vol. 4, No. 267, September 24, 2019

4167 - Lines.

This afternoon I worked frantically to get centers ready for tomorrow's kindergarten line exploration centers. One thing on my to do list was to repaint the line Rocks. The rocks are used for a sorting activity, straight versus curved. The paint was very chipped from years of use and ready for a makeover.

Vol. 4, No. 266, September 23, 2019

4266 - In Awe.

After school, my co-worker Mrs. Ski and I set to work hanging up the Annandale Elementary School Collaborative Project. It was a process to get this far. First all students in first through fourth grade made one paper quilt square inspired by the work of Libs Elliott. Each class was assigned a color scheme, allowing the squares to flow nicely through the rainbow. Next Mrs. Ski and I glued the squares from our respective classes to black backing paper. Then I attached 3M heavy duty double stick tape the the back of every section. This portion of the project took about 3 weeks to complete.

The next portion of the project was to hang the art. After much deliberation and measuring, we found the perfection of wall, up high in the cafeteria. This central location would insure that all students would get to see it every day and it would be out of reach, which hopefully means that it will stay up for a while. Once the location was secured, we needed to get the consent of our trusty custodian to use the tall ladders to hang the art ourselves. The custodians were hesitant, even offering to hang the art for us. However, not wanting to take them away from their job or give up control on how the mural was hung, we opted to do the work ourselves. The custodians checked in on us multiple times to make sure we were still doing okay.

Within an hour, with the Kids Club kids oohing and aahing over our progress as we went, the 50ft mural was hung. Bonus, no injury came upon either of us!

Vol. 4, No. 265, September 22, 2019

4265 - Three Bees.

Today I got to help Littlest Miller celebrate her 7th Birthday.  We went bowling and I made her a bracelet.

Vol. 4, No. 264, September 21, 2019

4264 - Royal Caribbean.

Tonight,  after beating my parents at both dominoes and cribbage, I decided to build a card tower. After multiple tries and switching decks of cards, I was able to build a tower using all 54 cards. A key in tower building is using well conditioned cards. New cards are too slippery to stand up on their own.

Vol. 4, No. 263, September 20, 2019

4263 - Bountiful Blooms.

While the flowers were hung about two weeks ago now, I finally made it up to the front of the school to take a picture. The rule for placing flowers was that it had to touch another flower. The vase got a little full on the right side. Hopefully next quarter we can balance it out a little.

Vol. 4, No. 262, September 19, 2019

4262 - Bunch O’ Dots.

During my classes at the middle school, while students were working on projects, I made these fun signs for the 7th grade dot display. Instead on doing a clump like online examples showed, we are creating a long line of dots creating continuous rainbows. At the end of every section, I am going to hang a quote dot. In retrospect, I should have put different quotes on each dot, but I wasn’t feeling very creative at the time.  Maybe I will make some now to have ready for next year. I drew the circles and wrote the words, then I had a student “make them pretty” for me.

Vol. 4, No. 261, September 18, 2019

4261 - Tech Savvy.

At one of our Back-to-School Meetings, my principal announced that the art department would be receiving a classroom set of new iPads. This was a welcomed surprise; last year I had graciously accepted a set of old iPads that were going to be disposed of if no one claimed them. They served the purpose of uploading art to our online art gallery, so I wasn’t expecting anything more.

When the new set of iPads arrived the cart was a mess. There were cords everywhere and some of the stands weren’t securely in place. After two weeks of ignoring the problem, I had to do something about it. So during my prep, I pulled out all of the iPads, and started rearranging the cords so that they were in the designated cord holders. I quickly discovered that my job would be much easier if I took out the shelves. This was easier said than done, because the shelves were screwed in and I didn’t have  the appropriate tools on hand.  So I shoved everything back in, and brought in a power screw driver the next day. After two more prep periods, I finally had all of the cords in the correct place, stretched out to a manageable length and the shelves back in place.

Last week in my frustration, I had Snapped a picture of the disaster that was the iPad cart to a friend, but I didn’t save it. So, all I have to show is the after picture. You will have to use your imagination to guess what it looked like before.

Vol. 4, No. 260, September 17, 2019

4260 - Money Ball.

My 6th graders are working on their identity color wheel project. The begin by drawing images that represent themselves and then color it to look like a colorwheel. Many students want to draw balls to represent various sports they are involved in, but often ask for help. This year, I decided to make a ball chart, showing 6 of the most common balls used in this project. I thought my soccer ball was a little wonky, but my 6th graders insisted it was very good. Thanks for the ego boost kids!

Vol. 4, No. 259, September 16, 2019

4259 - Just Dance.

Yesterday when I brought N home, I got to have some Miller Time. Oldest Miller wanted to recreate the project where she got to make up a dance and I drew the steps. I didn't feel like wasting my battery recording her dance, so she decided to pose and make me draw her. I did the 10 second stick man sketch; she didn't think that was good enough. So I tried again with the other drawing. Portraits are not my forte, so it's not great, but it satisfied Oldest Miller.

Vol. 4, No. 258, September 15, 2019

4258 - Snap Decision.

Today was my church's Fall Festival. I volunteered to be the chair of the pie room. This meant overseeing the cutting and serving of the pies for the dinner. During a lull in the serving I took a minute to send a picture of the pies to a friend. The second I took the picture I was struck by the resemblance to the work of Wayne Thiebaud. His paintings of pies and other dessert look so delicious.

Please note that I can't take any credit for making the pie, just cutting and serving the pie. My photo is on the top, Wayne Thiebaud's is on the bottom for comparison. No, they aren't exactly the same, but you can see the similarity, right?

Vol. 4, No. 257, September 14, 2019

4257 - I Want One.

This weekend, I got to hang out with N. We had lots of fun, but there may have been some bribing involved. In case you were unsure, bribing a three year old doesn't work very well. Regardless, I followed through with my bribe 'if you go to sleep, I will make you a bracelet in the morning.' N said she wanted a purple bracelet. So today while she was eating lunch, I braided a quick friendship bracelet. She was very excited and showed many people her new bracelet.

Vol. 4, No. 256, September 13, 2019

4256 - Just One More.

I had a student gone yesterday, so I made one more quilt square in case we have a gap. The next step is to start hanging the squares.

Vol. 4, No. 255, September 12, 2019

4255 - Double Take.

I worked with quilts again today as my last first grade class finished their quilt squares today for our school’s collaborative quilt inspired by Libs Elliott. This class and the one before used orange as their primary color.

Vol. 4, No. 254, September 11, 2019

4254 - Never Forget.

I remembered to take a picture of my collaborative quilt square today. At the elementary school, students in grades 1-4 working together to make a paper quilt inspired by the work of Libs Elliott. Each student is making a monochromatic quilt square that will be hung with the rest of the squares, creating a rainbow quilt around the cafeteria. Two of my classes worked with yellows. This is the square I made with them.

Vol. 4, No. 253, September 10, 2019

4253 - Forgotten City.

I forgot to take a picture of something that I made at school, so I frantically searched my mind for a quick project idea. Then I looked at my nails and saw chipped polish, remembering the chipped polish elephant I made before, I searched my nails more closely. I decided that one nail looked like a skyline. I took a picture and used a drawing tool on my phone to add the details.

Vol. 4, No. 252, September 9, 2019

4252 - Let's Get It Started.

As my 6th graders near the end of their Van Gogh flower making endeavor, I had to make a vase to put the flowers in. This year, I planned ahead enough so that I could laminate the vase, making it usable year after year.

Vol. 4, No. 251, September 8, 2019

4251 - What Not To Do.

Like last year, my 6th graders are beginning the school year with a Van Gogh inspired flower collaboration. Each student will make one flower to hang in the hallway, creating a large bouquet. The flowers are colored with oil pastels and one thing students struggle with is blending the colors. I decided to create a large example showing the correct and incorrect way to color. On the left, the petal colors blended because of the vertical coloring. On the right, you can see sections of color created by coloring horizontally.

Vol. 4, No. 250, September 7, 2019

4250 - Birthday Nails.

Today I got to help F celebrate her birthday. As part of the celebration, all of the Miller girls painted their nails. I helped F with her gold dots and gave S ombré nails.

Vol. 4, No. 249, September 6, 2019

4249 - The Last Piece.

The last piece to my dot rainbow was purple. When I got it finished, I arranged all of the dots creating a color wheel on the board.

Vol. 4, No. 248, September 5, 2019

4248 - Pool Party.

Tonight I attended the first home swim meet of the seasons to cheer on CC, my favorite diver. I was not super invested in the rest of the meet, so I brought with two dots that I wanted to get finished. I worked on the blue one for a while and my friend Amy seemed interested, so I offered the green dot to her. She got a decent start on it before her arm got to tired to continue. Just one more dot to go before I have a rainbow.

Vol. 4, No. 247, September 4, 2019

4247 - Might As Well.

Today while I was trying to explain the collaborative project to my 7th graders, I was really wishing that I had visuals. Alas, I didn't plan far ahead enough to have any examples made, so during class, I began with an example. I continued during my prep time, creating 3 examples by time the day was through. In order to complete the color combination options, plan to make green, blue and purple dots tomorrow.

Vol. 4, No. 246, September 3, 2019

4246 - Lost.

One thing that I have struggles as a lower elementary school teacher is letting students leave the room to use the restroom without fear of them getting lost or taking three times as long because they trek all the way across the school to go the the restroom that they know. Last year I came up with a plan, a line on the wall that the students can follow from my room to the restroom. The year came and went, and I never set anything up.

This afternoon, while I was relishing in my extra 1.5 hours of prep time because Kindergarten doesn’t start until tomorrow, I remembered my dream of not worrying about students making it out the restroom. I decided that rather than the string line that I had thought up last year, I would create a dotted line. Raindrops for the restroom and medical crosses for the nurse. Now all I have to do is show students the card that they need to follow and they should have no problem finding their way. I also made a point to tell the music teachers about the path as their room is right next door and they have the same problem.

Time will tell if my path is successful!

Vol. 4, No. 245, September 2, 2019

4245 - Dotty.

Nothing like waiting until the last minute, but I am a world class procrastinator. This afternoon, after taking all weekend off to enjoy the final days of summer vacation, I scrambled to complete my lesson plans for tomorrow. One such page of lesson planning was a worksheet for my 7th graders to use to design a circle that will be displayed as part of a class mural in the hallway. It would probably have gone faster to print the worksheet with just empty boxes and draw in the patterns myself, but why take the fast way when you can make digital patterns?

Vol. 4, No. 244, September 1, 2019

4244 - Undercover.

During workshop I had lots of time to doodle. While I was working on filling in my planner this afternoon, I found one on the doodles I made last week. It is an umbrella in the rain.

Vol. 4, No. 243, August 31, 2019

4243 - Sparkle Rooster.

Today I attended Red Rooster Day events in Dassel. In doing so I got to snap some fun photos of the Litchfield Royalty. Here are a few of my favorites.