The Destitute Teacher

So, so happy with the final results of our beginning of the year, class collaborative art projects! Clap along if you feel that this is a craft for you. Day one we began to create some class bunting. I already had crochet bunting hanging in the classroom, so we have a bit of a theme going on. I made a triangle template and traced out 24 triangles onto fabric. These were roughly cut out, so that I could name them on the outside of the triangle and be able to read it clearly. We put the traced side down on the table (so that I had clear cutting lines later) and we talked about not mixing colours, background/foreground and bright/interesting colours. The children painted self portraits in any old colours they choose. I limited their colour palettes to bright tones. Day One we painted basic shapes- head, shoulders, background. Day Two we added detail. Day Three we added further detail if needed. I took the triangles home to cut and assemble. Each 'flag' was cut out and re-na...

It is the start of a brand new school year in lil ol' NZ, and for the next few posts I am going to give you the grand tour of my classroom. I am beginning the round with my new school hat storage system... it has made my life so much easier, and was quick and simple to make. I bought two over-the-door-shoe-organizers from K-Mart for $8.00 each (just in case you are wondering, there is 16 pockets in each organizer). These were stapled to the back of my class library shelves. Top tip- use the staple gun at an angle. It makes it way easier to get the staples out later if there is a little gap at one end. I chopped off the bottom rows, as they were not needed, and ran a quick strip of patterned duct tape across the top and bottom (before running out). I then added laminated name labels (stapled on) and a sign. Quick, cheap, and easy (wink wink). I love it because I can see at a glance who doesn't have their hat at school today, and their hats are no longer scattered around my...

This post has been a long time coming... Last year our school had an art exhibition, where each child needed to produce an artwork to show. My class of seven year olds was eternally optimistic and wanted to produce FOUR smaller artworks, in a mixed media study of owls. We didn't quite make it to four, but gave it a good shot. Our first project was to produce a salt dough owl. Each child got a handful of dough (I think I used about 3kg of flour in total) and we followed the tutorial here Be warned- it took two days to bake 21 A5 sized dough owls enough. And baking salt dough smells kinda funny. Once baked, we looked at the process of painting our owls. We under-coated them with white, and slowly layered our paint. I wanted to emphasise the importance of getting the maximum effect- waiting to dry between each layer meant that we didn't end up with a horrible mess of brown paint. This process took a long time. In the end, to get it done I would have a painting table set ...

This term we have an arts focus, and I am almost beside myself with excitement. I have such large ambition for our artwork, and so little time... we need to get started! Last week we were lucky to begin our art unit with a trip to the local art gallery. This was a truly fantastic visit. We we guided around the gallery by the world's most amazing educator (I spent my time rhapsodising over her behaviour management and questioning skills), and then got to make our own artwork. The gallery provided some lovely heavy-weight watercolour paper. We did a very quick and simple line drawing of a local mountain/ocean scene. The painting was then completed with a lovely set of watercolours.... you know the kind that are a dry block on the palette and then you add water and it works? They came out just gorgeous. I love the way the watercolours have those swishes of colour through them... even the least artistic of us all had spectacular results! I mounted them on black paper a...

I luuuuuuurve dangling displays from the ceiling. If you don't need to duck as you walk through a classroom, then there is something wrong with the classroom- or you are really short. Hanging displays maximizes the space that you have- because lets face it- the wall space in classrooms is pitiful. I have a series of writing exemplars hanging in the classroom, and have just finished a set of 'childrens rights and responsibilities' mini posters to hang along the window. I'm sure there is many other uses, and we could all have dangly bits everywhere very soon! So here we go- easy peasy hanging displays :) These work best with firm materials- laminated paper or cardboard is perfect. Just punch a holes top and tail of each step of your hanging displays. Attach to each other with paper clips. Plastic coated ones paper clips are great- they don't scratch your hard work and they look better :). Paper clips mean that they swing in the breeze, and hang nicely. They...