Anti-Bullying Projects

Well, tonight was parent teacher conferences night at our school...and boy oh boy was it a slow night!  We had early dismissal at 11:30 and then teachers had to be back from 3:30-7:30.  I think tonight was the poorest showing of people in my two years there so far!  

Either way, I was able to visit with about 10 new parents, of whom I snagged into my room to give them their student's Artsonia slips.  I was also able to catch up on my grading today AND put up all of those anti-bullying projects we did from the beginning of the year!  

6th Graders:  "Cougars are here to stay so bullies run away!"  

I'm missing a letter "A"...not sure where it went...my superintendent suggested taking the "A" from "are" to replace the "A" in "away" that is missing and then get rid of the "E"...I was a little shocked that she suggested that "texting grammar" but I guess I'll go with it since she suggested it! ;)

6th Graders:  "Bullies beware...the cougars are everywhere!"

If you can't tell already, our school mascot is a cougar!  For this project, I broke students up into groups and had them brainstorm anti-bullying slogans.  Then they picked their best one to write on the board and they voted on one.  A fellow teacher cut out all the letters for me on her Cricut.  Next time I do this project, I'm going to make sure the students color a little darker on the letters...some of them don't stand out very well against the brick.

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The last stanza from The Crayon Box That Talked.

K-1 Self-Portraits...

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The following are the slogans the 5th graders came up with.  They worked in groups of 3-4 to brainstorm and pick their favorite slogan.  Then we spent two days photographing objects for all our letters.  The photographs turned out really great!  I'm not to thrilled with the way some of them chose to display them, but I also didn't give them much guidance on that either so I guess beggars can't be choosers!  I've got a lot of positive praise about them from teachers already, so I guess I can live with them!

 Be a brother, help each other.

Don't stand by and let others cry.

Bully Free Zone in our EK home.

Bullies drool and cougars rule.

I actually really like this one!  This group really added some creativity to the presentation of their slogan.

Stomp Out Bullying

I have 7 more that need to be mounted on paper to be displayed...more pictures to come once they are finished!

Can You Find the Bully???

Phew, today was a long day!  I was up at 4:30 am because of my lovely animals...(You know, it never fails...it doesn't matter if the cats see me take my hair band off my wrist or how much stuff is on the counter where I set it.  They seem to have RADAR!)  I had a full day of classes, then after school, and then I stayed for an extra hour to clean up the mess I have been calling my desk for the past few days!

Here is my first anti-bullying bulletin board! (Hopefully I will get the second one up tomorrow, as well as the anti-bullying slogans.)  This one is my "Where's Waldo?" inspired board:

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Here are some of my kiddos working on their "Mixing Colors" worksheet in kindergarten.  Next, the kindergartners will be learning about the different kinds of lines and we will do a primary line painting.

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Today I meant to do paper marbling with my after school group, but the small gas station on the way to school was out of plain shaving cream and I didn't think I had enough in school for a large group.  I also wanted to test it out before letting the kids do it as it's been a long time since I've done paper marbling.  The last time I did it, I used watered down tempera paint, however after surfing on Pinterest, I found many people use liquid watercolors or liquid food coloring.  Since I don't have liquid watercolors in stock right now (that may be the next thing I buy with my Artsonia funds!) I am going to try this paper marbling excursion with the food coloring.  Hopefully next week I'll be able to tackle that project after school.

Anyways, today we did a one-day project.  This was a kit that we ordered with grant funds from S&S Worldwide called "Ancient Cultures Jute Baskets."  I wasn't sure if the 13 kids who signed up for my project would be into it as it's just "boring basket weaving" but they actually really liked it!  A few of them got creative by weaving their baskets tighter to change the shape, and some added beads.  They asked if we could do it again so I plan to do some different variations with other kits that I have and Pinterest ideas.  They also said they would like to sew, so I may do a burlap banner sewing project with them as well.  Here are some photos of the finished products!

Anti-Bullying Self-Portraits!

I may not have mentioned it previously, but I am not considered a "full time" art teacher...I am 84%!  That means I go into school 5 out 6 six days in the 6 day cycle.  All of the other teachers are jealous of my illustrious "day 6" that I get to stay home (unless I tell the district that I can substitute teach that day, make copies, etc.).  So, this last Thursday I was able to stay home and get some work done around the house.  Guess what next week will be for me??? A 3-day weekend already!  In all honesty, I do enjoy having day 6 off, but I would really enjoy to become full time too!  Either way, I'm just happy to have a job teaching art in NYS!

As for what we've been doing in class, the Elementary counselor has been team teaching with me to present and kick off the anti-bullying campaign our school does every year with OLWEUS.  We are doing a little variety of projects. 

First, with K-2, we are talking about differences.  First she had them pick a single crayon out of my massive crayon box bin and they talked about how the crayons were similar and different.  Then they compared that to people.  Bless his little heart, one little boy said, "Well, um, you can use people like a pencil maybe and we can turn them upside down and use their hair to erase on their paper?  That could be how people can be like crayons!"  He said it with the utmost sincerity...those are the moments that keep me teaching elementary art!

Anyways, after the crayon talk, we read the poem "The Crayon Box That Talked" and then let the kids watch the video.  For the art project portion, each student received one crayon from a crayon box to draw a self-portrait with.  Let me just tell you, I was very impressed with some of the self-portraits one of my kinder classes drew!  I gave them a mirror to observe their facial features and I was SHOCKED at the number of students who drew their eye lashes, freckles, eye brows, etc. WITHOUT any prompting!  Not what I expected!  Definitely have some advanced little artists this year in kindergarten, I can't wait to see this group grow up and progress through art!

After all of the students create their portraits, we will display them in the order of the rainbow on our anti-bullying bulletin board in school!

So the other project we are working on currently is with 5th and 6th grade.  They are pretty similar.  The 5th graders broke into groups and brainstormed anti-bullying slogans.  After choosing their best one, they are creating photo alphabets to piece their slogans together to hang in the hall.  This is the FIRST time I am doing this with younger kids, so we will see how this turns out!  This weekend it's my homework to make sure all the pictures they took will work and to get them printed out in black and white so they can trim them and mount them neatly.  This particular group decided to all use art supplies to create their letters, which was a little disappointing.  My other group of 5th graders, however, is going to be a little more creative.  About half of them want to go outside to find letters and the others will be using their bodies/hands to create their letters. Once completed, these slogans will line the hallways at school...we will have 12 different slogans to display!

As for the 6th graders, they also brainstormed slogans that incorperated our school name/mascot into them.  One group decided on, "Bullies beware...the cougars are everywhere!"  Then, I had all the letters of the slogan cut out in large letters using a Cricut.  Then, each student gets 2 letters to decorate with an anti-bullying theme.  Some of them are doing a really nice job being creative with the theme, but others are sticking to the same old peace signs, hearts, etc.  Once finished, the two slogans will be displayed for the school year at the prominent school entrances.  More pictures to come after the slogans are complete!