18 Art Resourses

Here are 18 blogs and websites that have resources for teaching art.

• http://ms-artteacher.blogspot.com/
• http://www.theartofed.com/?utm_campaign=Listly&utm_medium=list&utm_source=listly
• http://drydenart.weebly.com/fugleblog.html?utm_campaign=Listly&utm_medium=list&utm_source=listly
• http://theteachingpalette.com/?utm_campaign=Listly&utm_medium=list&utm_source=listly
• http://minimatisse.blogspot.com/?utm_campaign=Listly&utm_medium=list&utm_source=listly
• http://www.artwithmre.com/?utm_campaign=Listly&utm_medium=list&utm_source=listly
• http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/?utm_campaign=Listly&utm_medium=list&utm_source=listly
• http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/?utm_campaign=Listly&utm_medium=list&utm_source=listly
• http://cassiestephens.blogspot.com/?utm_campaign=Listly&utm_medium=list&utm_source=listly
• http://www.artisbasic.com/?utm_campaign=Listly&utm_medium=list&utm_source=
• http://www.kidscreateart.com/?utm_campaign=Listly&utm_medium=list&utm_source=listly
• http://www.studentartguide.com/homepage?utm_campaign=Listly&utm_medium=list&utm_source=listly
• http://northernartteacher.wordpress.com/?utm_campaign=Listly&utm_medium=list&utm_source=listly
• http://arted20.ning.com/?utm_campaign=Listly&utm_medium=list&utm_source=listly
• http://talesfromthetravellingartteacher.blogspot.com/?utm_campaign=Listly&utm_medium=list&utm_source=listly
• http://artfueled.com/?utm_campaign=Listly&utm_medium=list&utm_source=listly
• http://rainbowskiesanddragonflies.blogspot.com/?utm_campaign=Listly&utm_medium=list&utm_source=listly
• http://applesloveorangespdx.blogspot.com/

Co-Teaching a Lesson

The last lesson that I did out in my field classroom I co-taught with Lindsey. We wrote the lesson together. It was about the main character in the story that the 2nd grade was reading that week. Mary Anning was a real person back in the 1800's, so we decided to give our students more detail about her life. She was a female from a poor family who hunted for dinosaur bones. She had very little education, and she taught her self about science.  We focused on the hardships of her life, and we wanted the students to be able to identify her hardships and to identify hardships that they may have. We had them do a writing piece having them tell us Mary Anning's hardships and hardships that they may have. Then the students got to do an art project. They got to find their own "fossil." We had them do a rubbing of either leaves, flowers, or bugs, then they got to design the background.  I helped out Lindsey when she taught the lesson in her room, and she helped me out when I taught it in my room. I think that the lesson went really well for both of us, and it was amazing to see the difference in our classrooms. Even though the students are all 2nd graders at the same school the two classrooms are night and day. It was a very good and interesting experience for the both of us.

Literature Activity- Picture Book Adventure for Social Studies

I had to miss a day of school because both of my children were sick and so was I. When I was gone my class did a picture book activity in groups, since I wasn't there I did it on my own. I did the activity on based on the books "Colorful Leaves" by Maria Fleming and "Autumn's First Leaf" by Steve Metzger and Illustrated by Aaron Zenz. The assignment had us choose a picture book that has a strong geographical awareness theme, and we had to create a learning adventure the integrates Social Studies and the Arts.

In my activity I had the student's write a Haiku poem about how leaves impact our lives. They were learning about how human systems and physical systems have an impact on each other. My standards are: SS.3.3.11 2007 Environment and Society: Identify and describe the relationship between human systems and physical systems and the impact they have on each other.

EL.3.5.7 2006 Write responses to literature that:demonstrate: an understanding of what is read in the form of poetry.

I thought that this assignment was going to be harder then it turned out to be. I could see myself doing something like this in my future classroom. 

18 Social Studies Resources

Here are 18 blogs and websites that have resources for teaching social studies.

• http://edublogs.org/curriculum-corner-history-and-social-studies/
• http://worldhistoryeducatorsblog.blogspot.com/
• http://multimedialearningllc.wordpress.com/
• http://mrsgannon.wordpress.com/
• http://misslwholebrainteaching.blogspot.com/p/social-studies-resources.html
• http://mrguerriero.blogspot.com/p/sixth-grade-social-studies.html
• https://www.icivics.org/
• http://tolerance.org/
• http://archieves.gov/education/
•  http://sheg.stanford.edu/rlh
• http://historicalthinkingmatters.org/
•  http://www.classroomlaw.org/
•  http://chnm.gmu.edu/teaching-and-learning/
• http://teachinghistory.org/
•  http://worldhistorymatters.org/
• http://teachingamericanhistory.org/lesson-plans/neh/
• http://www.mrdonn.org/
• http://youtube.com/user/crashcourse

Navarre Visit- Decades Project

Going to Navarre Intermediate/Middle School was a great experience. It was really great to be able to help the students out in anyway that we did, and to get to talk with the teachers. The teachers seem amazing!! They are a great together, and they just seem like great teachers. I loved being able to use what I am doing in the classroom to help out actual students, who are doing the same project that we are. Some of the 6th grade students seemed unsure of them selves, but that is to be expected. There was a lot of adults in the room with them. They didn't know us. I believe that we did help them. We helped them come up with some ideas for their projects, and we got to share a little about what we are doing with our projects.

I also like talking to them about college. They may not get that type of information from home, so it's nice to know that I may be influencing someones life for the better. Some of the students that we talked to come from pretty rough backgrounds. It's amazing how involved their teachers are and how much they care. When I think about teachers I know that I expect them to be involved and to care, but not all of them do, which is really sad. These teachers were really impacting our future and the future of those students. I hope to be able to do that one day.

 These are pictures from our prezi that we shared with the students, to show them one way to present their Decade. A prezi is a lot like a power point, but it's online so you don't need any one type of software.

Social Studies, L.A., and Art in one lesson

My observed lesson out in the field incorporated Social Studies, L.A., and Art. We discussed traditions and weaving. We read a weaving story and discussed how weaving is a tradition for some families and cultures. We also discussed about the different types of traditions that people have. I discussed how my family gets together for most Holidays, and about my families traditions for Christmas morning and day. Then I had the students share about their traditions that they have with their families. My students then got to weave a paper rug. They got to pick out the colors of the background and the different colors of the strips of paper they used for the weaving. The rugs turned out really good. Then I had the students write about a tradition that they have with their families. Some of the students didn't think their families had traditions, but by the end everyone had came up with at least one tradition that they had with their families.

The lesson turned out really good, and I'm really happy that this was the lesson that was observed. The students and a great time during the lesson, and based on their writing they learned about traditions.

My Art Projects

I have finished all four of my art projects, and I am pretty happy with all of them. The first one that I made was the salt dough hand prints. I made my children's hand prints. If I would have used this in my classroom, it would be in a younger classroom, and probably around the holiday season. I would let them decorate it anyway that they want, and have them write their name and date on it. The second one that I did was a multimedia piece. I did this one with Lindsey. We took a canvas and painted it grey. We glued a paper on it that had a poem about thunderstorms. We then painted rain drops, and glued pieces of fabric in the shape of clouds. I would use this piece to go along with a science lesson about the weather. I would have the students do something like this either by themselves or with a partner, and they could do it about any type of weather they would like to do it about. My third piece was a collage. I painted a piece of paper red and painted a black heart in the middle. I then put pictures of my family in the heart. I would have students do something like this to show who their family is. It could be anyone that they consider family. My last one is a painting of a snowy night landscape. I did this one in my bed one night when I had a really bad migraine, but it turned out pretty good. I would have students do this either just for the art or in a science lesson. They could paint their favorite type of landscape.

Salt dough art project

For one of my art projects that I am doing, I  made salt dough hand print ornaments of my children. I let my 4 year old daughter help me make the dough, and she loved it. Then I put her hand print on one, and my 18 month sons hand print on one.  I put a hole at the top to put a ribbon through it, so you can hang them up. I painted my sons red and my daughters purple, because that's her favorite color. I'm going to write their names on them and put the year.

If I was to do this in the classroom it would be for a younger grade, like kindergarten. I would let the help me make the dough, and decorate it anyway that they want too. I would have them paint their own name on it, for handwriting, and put the date on it. Then that parents would have a keepsake.


Here is a picture of my first coat of paint and no writing yet.

Trade Fair

This week we had a trade fair in our Social Studies class. I had no idea what to bring. Sydney said to bring baked goods, clothes that we are planning on giving away, or just anything that we have around the house. I didn't have anything around the house. I was going to bake brownies, but I never made it to the store to get the brownie ingredients. So when I stopped and got my coffee in the morning I just bought some red velvet cookies. In class we then traded out items for other items. I ended up with some shot glasses for my husbands shot glass collection.

I think that this would be a really good project to do in my elementary classroom. We would be studying the history of trading, money, and supply and demand. It would be a in dept project, and I would give my students and their parents plenty of time to come up with an item for the trade fair. Also for the few students who may not be able to bring anything in, I would have baked goods for them to trade with. I believe that this would be a really fun way to get my students actually involved in my class and in social studies. I think that they would have a lot of fun with this project.

Art Projects

This week in art we picked four different art projects to complete in four weeks. I am going to be doing multimedia, landscape perspective, salt dough, and collage. I am very excited about these
projects, but also very scared and nervous. I don't feel very creative, but I would like to be. I am going to work very hard on these projects, and really try my best. I have been researching these topics and trying to come up with different ideas for each one.  Also we finished our mask. I did decided to put eyes in the mask, and I also put a red ribbon through it. We had to write a caption for it. I just wrote that my favorite color is red, that is why the whole mask is red. I am drawn to all things red, that is why I did the mask this way. By far this is one of the hardest classes that I have taken.

"Paper Clips"

In social studies we watched the movie "Paper Clips." It's a really good documentary about a middle school that wants to teach tolerance and acceptance to it's students. They decided to study the holocaust, and one of the students asked what 6 million looked and no one knew. So they decided to collect 6 million paper clips in honor of the victims of the holocaust. The story went national and in the end they collected over 29 million paper clips. Actual holocaust survivors got involved and shared their very touching and heartbreaking stories. In the end they put 11 million paper clips in a train cart that actually shipped people to the concentration camps. They made a really nice memorial at the school. They decided on 11 million for the 6 million Jews, and 5 million other people that they killed for other reasons.  It was a really touching movie that really makes you think about different things. I would really like to show this movie and teach about this if I ever teach in an upper elementary school. This movie teaches you that hate is not the way, and you shouldn't hate a single group of people. Hate can lead to extreme pain and suffering for millions of people for no reason. This movie teaches students that history is really about people of history and how certain events affect our lives.

Cultural Masks

In art we made mask that represent us culturally. I had no idea what to make, still don't. I am not artistic at all, which I really am trying to work on. So I just cut folder in a  "face" shape. It was a red color, but red is my favorite color, so I just painted it red. Then I added red glitter glue, and red sequins. It doesn't represent me culturally, at all. I still don't know how I would have done that. It shows something that I like, the color red, and I don't think that it looks so bad. I didn't cut out any eye holes in it, yet. I may do that or I may not. I'm not sure about that. Art is something that I really need to work on, so that I can be the best teacher possible. I do believe that the best teachers, bring a lot of different ideas and projects into their classrooms. Students really enjoy doing different things, and still learn from them.

Culture Backpack

In Social Studies we also wrote 5 or more things on the board that described our life up to 4th or 5th grade. I wrote that my mom was a stay at home mom, dad was a factory worker, who worked a lot. Even though he worked a lot, I don't remember him missing anything. He was very involved in all of our lives. I have really great parents. They are still married, this year will be 28 years. I have 3 brothers, 1 older and 2 younger. My two younger brothers are twins. My older brother is a "foster" brother. My parents didn't have the money to adopt him. We have had to deal with his birth family through the years. I moved in Kindergarten, bigger house, same school. Then again in 6th grade. I went from an elementary school to a Jr. High in the middle of the school year. That was the most traumatic experience of my childhood. I would say if that was the worse thing to happen to me, I had a really good childhood. I had a really great childhood, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Nothing bad happened, and my parents always put us first.

5 Artifacts in Class

This week in Social Studies we had to bring five artifacts that we felt best describes or symbolized us culturally. At first I had no idea what to bring in. This activity was really hard for me. I don't know if what I brought in really described me culturally, but they described what is most important to me. I brought in a current picture of my wonderful family. A five generation picture that we got taken a few months before my great grandma passed away. This picture really means a lot to me, because I wasn't the only great grandchild who had a baby, but I was the only one who took the time to get a five generation picture. It was my dad's grandma, so in the picture was my great grandma, my grandma, my dad, my baby girl when she was only 3 or 4 months old, and myself. I really treasure this picture. I also brought in a quilt that my great grandma made. I didn't get it until after her death. My grandma keeps handing them out, whenever a great grandchild has a baby, so now I have two of them. I brought in a wedding picture of my husband and myself, which is in a very nice picture frame from my aunt. The last artifact that I had was my wedding ring. Being happily married is very important to me. I believe that it is the foundation to my family. Plus my husband is my best friend, and the most important person in my life. We have been together for almost 9 years, and married for over 7. I wouldn't be who I am today without my family. All of my artifacts all have the common theme of family and marriage. That's what best describes me.

Classroom Environments

The last class that I was able to attend we had class with both blocks in one class, which is really crowed, but we get to hear a lot of different ideas. We were talking about what makes an ideal classroom environment. We started out by making a list of an awful environment. Some of the things that we listed were: physical/verbal abuse, unsafe equipment, lack of resources, no consistent teacher, no goals, unorganized and so on. Then we made a list about what a ideal environment looks like. Some of the things that we listed were: enforced rules, safe environment, collaboration, praise, organization, acceptance for diversity and so on.

Some of the items that we listed for both categories were things that the teacher can't help, but a lot of the items are things that the teacher can control. To be an amazing teacher you need to be able to know what is in your power to make a highly effective classroom. Your school may have a low budget, but you as the teacher can make any situation into a highly effective learning environment. It just may take more time, but it is possible.

When I have my own classroom, I know that I won't have the "ideal" classroom when it comes to the things that I can't control. For the things that I can control, I want to be that amazing teacher who makes the best out of any situation. I want my classroom to be highly effective, and I want my students to feel safe and open to learn.

Photos for Social Studies

One of the first assignments for my social studies class was to bring in two different pictures with no people in them.

One was a photo that I believe embodies our most important right as a citizen of the world. For this one I took a picture of my husbands gun, because I feel that the right to be able to own firearms if very important. I believe that there needs to be restrictions and regulations, but if you haven't done anything criminal in your past, then you should be able to own a gun. You may want to own firearms for many different reasons, and if you aren't a threat to anyone else, then I believe that it is your right, 100%, to own a gun.

The other photo that I had to bring to class was about civic responsibility. I took a picture of my voters registration, because I believe that as a citizen you need to vote. If you don't vote, then you have no right to complain about what is happening in our county. I believe that you vote for the person that you think is going to run our country the best. You need to do research, and vote intelligently. It is also very important to vote at the local level as well as the national level. Voting is the one way to have your voice heard, whether or not your candidate wins.

Dream Poems

One of the first projects that we did in Art class was make a Dream Poem. I loved this project, because I love to write. I have a hard time coming up with what to write at first, but that's just because I want to be a really good at writer no matter what it is. This poem was about a dream that we have for the world. Here is my poem.

                                            Everyone needs to see the beauty in their lives.

                                            Life is short, be thankful for all the joys you get to experience.

                                            Stop focusing on the dis-satisfactory, start rejoicing for all of your blessings.

This poem is important to me, because I know so many people who are so sad and depressed. I know that they have a lot of hardships, but at the same time they have a family and wonderful children. they have blessings that they can't even see, because they spend all of their time thinking about the bad things that happen to them. I think that they need to see the good in their life, and know that it can get better if they don't just concentrate on the bad. When the bad is all you concentrate on, then that's all you are going to see.

When I am a teacher I want to teach my students to be happy with their blessings, no matter what their hardships are. Everyone has hardships, but you also have blessings. If they don't think that they have any blessings at home, then I want to be their blessing. I will be an adult in their lives who loves them, and really cares about what happens to them. Our classroom and the school will be the blessing in their lives, if they have nothing good at home.

First couple of weeks of school.

This semester has been crazy so far. With the snow and cold temperatures all of the school systems in the area have been closed or had 2-hour delays multiple times throughout the first two months of the year so far. IUSB has also been closed a few times, or if they haven't been closed the roads have been pretty bad so more then half of the class had to stay home. I am hoping that in the coming weeks we can start have a regular schedule again. I would really like to get this semester really started and to get everything done that needs to be done before student teaching.  I am really enjoying my classes and field experience this semester, so I would love to be able to go to all of my classes every week.