Introducing Midnight Tales - Vintage Font Midnight Tales is vintage, elegant font with tons of alternate glyphs, ligatures and multilingual support. It's a very versatile font that works great in large and small sizes. Midnight Tales is perfect for branding projects, home-ware designs, product packaging, magazine headers - or simply as a stylish text overlay to any background image. Uppercase, lowercase, numeral,punctuation & Symbol Alternate glyphs Ligatures Multilingual support How to access alternate glyphs? To access alternate glyphs in Adobe InDesign or Illustrator, choose Window Type & Tables Glyphs In Photoshop, choose Window Glyphs. In the panel that opens, click the Show menu and choose Alternates for Selection. Double-click an alternate's thumbnail to swap them out. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions! Mock ups and backgrounds used are not included! Thank you! Enjoy!
This week I was lucky enough to have one class for the entire week! I had a lot of fun. It's nice when you can plan a series of lessons that connect, rather than just turn up and do random, one off lessons. So this post will be about my favourite lessons of the week, because if I write about everything, this will turn into a TLDR post. For Literacy, I focused on The Gizmo by Paul Jennings. I love his stories, I remember reading them as a kid and would spend hours reading them in one go. The Gizmo is a great story to do with the older grades as the story is interesting and has themes the students can relate to. If you haven't read this book before, it's about a boy called Stephen who is pressured into stealing by the school Bully, Floggit. Stephen feels guilty about stealing so he tries to make it right by returning what he stole. However he can't, so he tries to rid himself of the item in different ways. Along the way he faces a few entertaining mishaps and by the end of the story he has learned his lesson. I had only read the first chapter, when the students started to ask and answer their own questions about the story (by themselves! I didn't even have to ask them to!). The main question; "Why would Stephen hang out with this Floggit guy when he is such a jerk?". So that started a big discussion on how sometimes people hang out with people they don't necessarily like because they don't want to be an outcast or seen as a loser. Throughout the week we did a few activities around the book such as; coming up with excuses to tell Floggit to avoid stealing the Gizmo and character profiles. The character profile activity produced some great responses. I let the students design it however they wanted. So some of them did it as a wanted poster, some as a profile and one student drew a picture of Stephen and wrote paragraphs about his personality around the picture. We finished the book on Thursday and I told the class that if they liked the story they could go to the library and check out other books by Paul Jennings. I also mentioned how he wrote a few other books about The Gizmo, so they begged me to bring them in for Friday. On Friday I read The Gizmo Again. Which, automatically lent itself to Text to Text Connections. Similar theme as the original; nice guy gets influenced by the bad guy to do the wrong thing and so he learns his lesson to not listen to the bad guy. We also did some Reciprocal Teaching. I got to use my Reciprocal Teaching Pack (don't you just love shameless promotion?). The text we used was Possum Magic by Mem Fox. To start off I went through each of the roles, the class was already familiar with this strategy, so it was a quick recap. Then as we read the text, students practiced using the roles. The text was good for the clarifying strategy, as it involved a lot of Australian terms and since some students were from different cultural backgrounds they didn't know what some of the things were. The internet was used to help with the visuals. Another great Literacy lesson was about the book, A Little Election by Danny Katz. After we discussed the story, I gave the students the task; Imagine you want to be the 'Prime Minister of (insert school name here)'. What policies would you introduce and why? Develop a campaign to convince your teacher and peers to vote for you. Students were allowed to work in groups or individually. They were allowed to develop their campaign however they wanted. Some students wrote a speech and some designed a poster. They used paper, computers and iPads to present their ideas. I was pretty impressed, they came up with a lot of good ideas as well as justifying the reasons behind them. Was pleased to see that no one came up with the 'We will just play all day' idea :P Our Art topic was 3D Illusion Art. Last week, I did the 3D hand activity and they were pretty impressed, so I did some research and found two more activities. On the Monday we did this one; (Image credit; http://www.frubilledkunst.dk/) On Tuesday, when I came back (on Monday, I had no idea that I would be back on that class for the rest of the week), a few of them had taken them home and completed them to show me. So, I knew that I had to find another one to do with them on my last day. We did this one; (Image credit; http://www.teachkidsart.net/) The thing I love about 3D Illusion Art is that it looks complicated, but it's actually quite simple and the kids just love it! It kind of makes me want to start up some kind of Art Club if I get a job next year... I really enjoyed my week on the class. I've always seen myself as an Infants Only teacher, but I think I would quite enjoy having a year 4 class. I kind of wish I had put different preferences on my EOI for 2015. The kids kept asking me if I could be their teacher next year, lol. I wish! Next week, I have work on Monday and then I am back to waiting eagerly by the phone. I seriously think I am the only nutter who is up at 5am each morning so I can be all ready to go if I get a call after 6am :P In TPT news, I have uploaded a bunch of new products and revamped a few of my older ones. I'll write about them next time. Enjoy what's left of your weekend :)
This is an awesome Halloween writing project that's perfect for upper elementary. It's sure to engage your students' creativity.
Did I ever mention that Faith Ringgold is one of my favorite artists? I love the messages in her story quilts: community, heritage, harmony... Ever since I walked into the Chicago Cultural Center back in 2000 to view her quilt exhibit, I was hooked on her quilts. I was even a great honor to shake her hand after receiving my bachelor's diploma at my commencement ceremony at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago back in 2001. And yes, I've met her again since then. My students think it's cool that I've met a famous artist. When I show them the picture, they always say, "You met her? That is so cool!" or I'll even get, "She's real?" Yes...I get that. I like to introduce a project inspired by Faith Ringgold's community quilts around the end of February/beginning of March. I tie in Black History Month and continue with Women's History Month since this project could take a few weeks. Before the students know what the project is about, we spend time reading a story written by Faith Ringgold called "How the People Became Color Blind." The link takes you directly to her website with a story you can print out and read to your class. After we read the story, the students and I have a discussion about the story, asking questions about how we would feel if the world was all one color. Here are the materials for the project: -10.5" x 10.5" white paper, 60lb. (thin paper will rip from the paint) -12" x 12" color paper (if you frame each picture) -pencils -paper plates (my palettes) -multicultural tempura paints for skin and hair -tempura paint -brushes -water and water bowls -black markers When I'm ready to start the project, I go over step by step how to draw the face. This project is also my main portrait project with 4th grade, so many of them are starting to draw faces for the first time (my district has a high transient rate). I start with the oval face, then show where to draw the guidelines for the eyes, nose, mouth, and hairline. The students are always fascinated that their ears start and end on their nose lines too! Here are two print-outs I found on Pinterest that can be used as guides for the students: After showing the students how to draw the face and shoulders, I encourage students to draw other details that would define who they are (for example, flags that represent pride and heritage, or drawings that represent what the student likes and cares about). The point is to have all the students create painting of their individual selves, then combine them together to show our school community. Day 1 of painting is for the neutrals and flesh tones. I put out a plate of different peaches, browns, and tans, along with black and white. I tell the students to paint their face, leaving the eyes open (sometimes the students paint over the eyes!), and to not forget the ears and neck (yeah, that happens too!). I also encourage students to paint their hair color, and if they have brown eyes. Day 2 of painting is for the other colors of the rainbow, which can be used for clothing, background, eyes, and jewelry. Day 3 is for touch ups. It's a pain trying to carry ALL those colors on a cart or to pour ALL the colors for the students who were absent or behind, but it has to happen. I normally have a bin for neutrals/flesh tone paints and a bin for the other colors, and I have students carry the bins for me back to the storage room. Also, don't pour every single color out on the plates, it takes too much time and not every student needs all the colors! Instead, I have the students at each table tell me what colors they need and I can pour it twice as fast as I would pouring all the colors out. Many students may be done with painting on this day too, so I have them trace their pictures with black markers. This helps bring the eyes, noses, and mouths back from painting over them. Day 4 is for final tracing and display. You can choose to have each picture framed themselves, or you can display the paintings together as a "quilt" by gluing each block onto a sheet of kraft paper from the big tools. I also trim strips of colored paper to add a top frame to each project (which protects the paintings from students bumping into the displays on the walls in the hallway). Here are some close-ups of student projects from past displays!
Peter Donnelly is an Irish illustrator and art director. His work displays a love for folk art and vintage print design. He works in a variety of media including screenprinting, drawing and digital…
An easy peasy way to draw an exceptionally tall giant! Age: Upper primary Resources: paper, pencil, eraser, watercolour paint, ruler What you do: STEPS 1- 4 I have drawn in pen so you can see! You do it all in light pencil because you are going to need to rub some lines out before you paint. 1) Using a pencil on A4 white paper draw a point in the middle of the top and one at the middle of the bottom. Join these lines using a ruler. Then draw a line from the top middle to each bottom edge. 2) Next, draw a line about 2 cm from the top and one about 5 cm from the top. These are for the head and the waist lines. Then draw a head, a waist and arms. 3) Now add curved trouser bottoms and curved shoes. 4) Draw the sides of the boots and the soles then add the eyelets and laces. Add the sleeves of the shirt, braces and curves lines for the waist. Draw the giants face. Erase all the lines you don't need now. 5) Paint with watercolours. Add a background. This idea came from Usborne Art Ideas: Big Book of Things to Draw
