Le Corbusier is not only an architect, he is more than an architect. I’ve always thought that he is the person behind the infamous Grand Comfort Sofa
Every once in awhile I find a project that makes me so giddy I can't stand it! And this was one of those projects! An artist at the Trinity Spotlight on Art show had these adorable paintings of little girls blowing bubbles. My wheels starting spinning on the ideas for my own kiddos at school! Self-portraits blowing gum bubbles!! Aha! These portraits were made by 5 and 6 year olds. They are acrylics on canvas...the bubble is a flat bottom wooden ball. These are the biggest parents pleas project I've made to date! Enjoy!! We are headed to Disneyworld tomorrow....I think I am more excited than the kids. I can't wait to ride Peter Pan and eat dinner with Winnie the Pooh (we are doing this on Mailey's 10th birthday btw!!)!! This is our second trip with the kids to Disney. The first was on New Year's Eve like 7 years ago. Crazy. Crazy. Hopefully this time it will be a little less crowded!! We have no plan of action or hand book. We just plan to go and enjoy. I think people that over plan a Disney trip miss out on some of the magic of the trip. And besides our kids are older and no strollers will make navigating the parks much easier!
Photo Reference of Sarah Charcoal placement Follow Me, 12 x 9 Loved the simplicity of this shape -- I kind of exaggerated her head in the painting, and made her wider too, I see. The angles here appealed to me, as well as the attitude of the pose, which was better captured in the sketch than in the painting! The solid confidence of little kids is pure and strong; it's fun to pare down all elements to the minimum and let it shine.
It seems like I've been cross-stitching my whole life. I really enjoy this type of creativity. Recently, I found myself without a job, and to find a way out of this situation, I started creating and selling my own cross-stitch patterns. Yes, in such a difficult time for me, I decided to create my own workspace—a digital cross-stitch pattern designer. A dream job!
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Since the quarterly reveal date for our Four-In-Art is coming up in a couple of days, I thought it was high time to sit down and think about this new overall theme of Urban, and the specific quarte…
Receptive language is the comprehension of language input. Learn all about it, plus X easy activities to improve receptive language delays!
Ladies and Gentleman... we officially have the first week down in the books!! And what an AMAZING week it was!! #BestFirstWeekEver!! My kiddos are just awesome. We learned a lot and laughed a lot! My own children also had a great week (aside from a quick bout of a stomach bug that kept one home for a day!). My oldest, Drew, started 1st grade. My middle, Quinn, started Kindergarten. And my toddler twins, Addy and Chase, began two-mornings-a-week preschool. Additionally, Mr. Musings from the Middle School (my husband Dennis), started a new school year, too! Phew!! My head is spinning! Anyway, I hope everyone is having a great weekend and recovering from this busy time of year. This post is mainly a pictorial of some of the goings on in my classroom this week. As we settle into our routine, I'll be back with more "meaty" posts (and hopefully some new videos, too!). One of my favorite activities from the week was this Growth Mindset lesson that I adapted from here. Basically, the kids had to create the image on top using just a piece of paper and scissors. It was NOT easy... but that's exactly the point! As the kids worked, I wrote down some of the comments I heard. Things like, "this is impossible," and "I give up!" After I let them struggle for a while, I brought them back together and discussed the activity with them. It was eye-opening to see their words. They all agreed that their attitude was too negative so of course they would never have been successful. Then we read the Growth Mindset posters hanging in our room and discussed what each one meant. I closed with this video from Khan Academy. It was a fun and powerful lesson. One of the BEST purchases I made from TpT for this school year is the Icebreakers that Rock bundle from Cult of Pedagogy. This product contains three PowerPoint activities that allow students to talk to each other in an easy, comfortable way. What is great about these is that you can use them as one, big activity, or you can break them up, showing just a few slides here and there, as "brain breaks" through out the day. That is how I used them. So, on the first day, I did a big "Find Someone Who" activity with them. This allowed all the kids to learn each other's names. Next, I assigned them all their lockers and we practiced opening the combination locks (super-stressful for these first time locker users)! After that, we did a few slides from Icebreakers that Rock. Then, we went over the syllabus. Next, a few more Icebreakers that Rock slides. After that, I handed out and went over all the paperwork that had to go home and be signed (oh, the paperwork!!!). Then, a few more slides right before lunch. And then a few more right after lunch. Next up, a tour of the building. Then a few more slides before trying our lockers again. Finally, another slide right before dismissal. It was the perfect break/filler/attention-getter/distraction to use throughout the day... actually, I used the slides throughout the whole week! Run to TpT and pick this product up today! Totally worth every penny. (Some of the slides can be done silently. I LOVED these slides!!) Of course, we had to number our notebooks to get ready for ELA next week. I always tell kids that this is the easiest, most difficult task that we do all year :) I really the love smell of a Mr. Sketch anchor poster in the morning! This year, I'm starting with Reading Nonfiction: Notice and Note Stances, Signposts, and Strategies. My thinking is that it will really help with getting started with Article of the Week. Here is one of several of the posters I'll be using to teach these strategies. I'm jumping on the #ObserveMe bandwagon! Read more about it here. I'll keep you updated on how this goes throughout the year! Okay... that is enough for now! The beach is calling my name... nothing beats September here at the Jersey Shore! Hope the back-to-school season is treating you well! I'd love to hear how your school year is going so far. Happy Teaching!!
The Empowered Educator - Children's Cardboard X-ray 'Tablet'
Target "size of the problem" by describing and solving problems for emotional regulation. Activities, visuals, social story and goals!
I like Pretend Play it keeps the kids busy for a while, away from their iPads and barely costs me anything. So I decided to create some Pir...
“Maman” makes use of the spider motif, which Bourgeois had used in a 1947 drawing and which helps us to understand the autobiographical nature of the work.
Get reacquainted with the Swinging Sixties' waifish golden girl.
I am a sucker for handmade posters in my classroom. From inspirational quotes to anchor charts for ELA and math, my room is full of them!Some of them I hand drew on poster board or
I get asked all the time about what types of carving tools I use to create my fine art printmaking editions. The ones I use depend on what type of lino I am using (soft or hard) and is largely a pe…
I am soooooo excited about the music staff in my hallway at school. The caption is "Each of us a single note, together we create a mast...
For my entire career, I've had a lengthy block of time to teach ELA. (Note: For my district, ELA encompasses all the English Language Arts Common Core Standards.) At most, I've had 106 minutes, and at
Below are a few plein air cityscapes from the last week in and around Zagreb. Here in Croatia Spring has finally started in all it’s glory. I have a show of Zagreb cityscapes on May 9th here in the…
Yoon Ji Seon's embroidered portraits blend fiber and photography. Much of work consists of self-portraits, with varying degrees of emotions, abstraction, and detail. Her "Rag Face" series goes back to 2006, when she started experimenting with these mixed-media pieces.
Need to make some fake fire? This tutorial will show how to craft your own handheld flame out of TranspArt dyed with iDyePoly.
I finished quilting this Labyrinth Walk quilt for my friend, Donna. It’s a big one! I love the colors and fabrics she chose. She wanted a custom job that would emphasize the 3D design. That m…
"I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else," Pablo Picasso Soft Morning (detail), 12 x 12, which is a re-do of this one Another switcheroo... Party of Three, 16 x 12, which is a crop and re-touch of this one Yet more changes .... During December, I have moved my home studio from the main level to the lower level - and wow, I should have done this years ago! Light is streaming in - so much that I need to "manage" it, and I can easily do several paintings at once. There's even room for small "intensives," i.e. little workshops -- chez moi. Shiny New Space Empty former studio, which was about 11 x 10; I truly do not know how all of my stuff was in there, but it was -- for about 12 years! Woohoo The painting over fireplace is yet another re-do: it used to be 48 x 48; now it's cropped, re-stretched, with background adjusted. Far off is a gift box on the set-up table - at least I can't see too many details :-) Also I could move my easel. Meanwhile, a new year approaches, life changes, and I'm hoping to be flexible and to welcome things not yet known. Painting offers a unique opportunity to rip it up and fly -- after all, it's just paint! A tentative drawing... can become a more confident painting Fresh roses, bathed in light often become lovely when dry and drooping a bit ... "Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish," Michelangelo
Manage your middle schoolers during speech therapy with my 10 best strategies for behavior management to encourage and motivate!
Years ago, at a workshop, I was introduced to Jeff Anderson's Power Writing. The basic idea (or at least how it was conveyed to me at the workshop) is this: Round One: Give students two words (I used "school" and "vacation") and have them write the words at the top of their page. Then they need to circle one. Set the timer for one minute and tell students to write as fast as they can about that word or a story that includes that word. When time is up, have them count the number of words they wrote. Record their word counts (you can see how I used the chart and tally marks). Round Two: Same directions, only with two different words (I used "chocolate" and "pizza.") Record word count again. Round Three: Repeat with two more words (I used "summer" and "winter") and record again. Now, ask students to summarize the "data" on the board and see if, from the data, they can form a generalization about writing based on what they observed. (I usually let them work in groups or at least with a partner.) Most students will be able to conclude that with each round, they got faster. Then some will generalize that maybe writers need to get "warmed-up" when writing just like athletes do when playing a sport. Eureka!! We discuss that most practices or work-outs will begin with a warm-up to get the body ready for exertion. I explain that writers need to do the same thing! They need to get their hands and head warmed-up for all the writing that is about to come in class that day. I tell them that that is why will begin each and every class with a 10-minute bell-ringer: a quick write that will get us ready for the real work ahead later in class. Each day, when my students come into class, they need to write for 10 minutes without stopping. They can write about whatever they want, but I always have a prompt on the board just in case they need some motivation. Usually it's one of these prompts, or a fun picture. It's a quiet and peaceful way to begin class, and, as our research shows, the perfect way to get our hands and head ready for all the writing ahead! What are some of your favorite bell-ringers? I'd love to hear from you!! Happy Teaching!!
My colleague Douglas Kelso did a project with the students, where they made drawings in cardboard by scraping away the top layer of paper to reveal the corrugation beneath. These are really effective, while they were on the wall I began to think of their potential for printmaking. Douglas agreed I could sacrifice his demonstration piece to experiment with and it worked. Make your cardboard drawing as above, cutting with a scalpel and scraping away the paper surface. You can then roll it with relief printing ink or even acrylic paint and print. You get different effects with different densities of cardboard, the direction of the grain and how thorough you are at scraping away the paper layer. Above: are student prints, from the top: Lee Hutchison, Andy Crichton and below Douglas Kelso's Che
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The Fruit and Vegetable Artist. As part of a lesson I was teaching once to my third grade art students, we studied Italian artist Guiseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593) The one to the right is one of his most famous. The kids had a great time with this. They got quite excited about turning "food into faces". I got into the spirit myself and did a couple of colored pencil portraits. I also had the students use colored pencil, which was a new medium for them. Giuseppe Arcimboldo (also spelled Arcimboldi; 1527 - July 11, 1593) was an Italian painter best known for creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of such objects as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, and books - that is, he painted representations of these objects on the canvas arranged in such a way that the whole collection of objects formed a recognisable likeness of the portrait subject. Arcimboldo was born in Milan in 1527, the son of Biagio, a painter who did work for the office of the Fabbrica in the Duomo. Arcimboldo was commissioned to do stained glass window designs beginning in 1549, including the Stories of St. Catherine of Alexandria vitrage at the Duomo. In 1556 he worked with Giuseppe Meda on frescoes for the Cathedral of Monza. In 1558, he drew the cartoon for a large tapestry of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, which still hangs in the Como Cathedral today. Here are the two that I did. I think they are rather comical, yet artistic. Very fun to do, you might want to try it sometime.
Greetings, Here is a great web page from Dr. Robert Droual, Professor of Anatomy & Physiology at Modesto Junior College, listing muscles, locations of origin and insertion, and actions of the muscles. http://droualb.faculty.mjc.edu/Lecture%20Notes/Unit%203/muscles%20with%20figures.htm I hope you find the my thoughts on these images helpful! Best, Catherine Of particular interest to wind/brass players and vocalists: Muscles at the Floor of the Mouth These muscles elevate the hyoid bone and move the tongue back during swallowing and are NOT used while playing or singing. Check out these muscles which restrict tone production and breathing! Muscles of Facial ExpressionThese muscles move skin rather than a joint when they contract. They control minute movements affecting embouchure and tonal control. Try experimenting with gentle contractions and releases of individual muscles and notice the effects on your tone. Flutists: experiment with simultaneous gentle contractions of Depressor labii inferioris, depressor and anguli oris, zygomatic major and minor, and levator labii superioris to free the tongue and lips. This is what I often call a "square embouchure. See this post for more info. Muscles of Mastication Wind and brass players should take particular care to avoid tensing the muscles of mastication while playing. It is amazing how much simply visualizing these muscles and focusing on relaxing them improves tone!
Crochet Pattern The pattern I used for the fairies is from KHookCreations: here. My hats for sale in my Etsy store: Here. Ravelry link: Here. Materials: 5mm hook Yarn Bee, Soft Secret in olive Yarn…
A watercolour by internationally renowned artist, botanical illustrator and author, Philippa Nikulinsky AM is one of the many delights of the WA Museum Boola Bardip. This work is the result of an approach by the WA Museum in 2019 to see if Philippa was interested in creating a painting of WA wildflowers, particularly from Kwongan […]
