Long Time No Blog!

Well, ladies and gents, it's been a hot minute (a year and a half to be exact) since I last took a look at this ol' blog that I (unintentionally) abandoned and a lot has changed in my life.

I bought a house! (yay!) I got a new job! (yay!) At a school I love! (double yay!)

And I'm ready to get back into the swing of things here on the blog life if, for no other reason, than to track my own progress and sanity. Sometimes I forget that teaching involves a whole lotta learnin' and I'm going to dedicate the revamping of this blog to my personal artistic and teacherly journey starting with a book I'm reading.

I recently picked up Teach, Breathe, Learn: Mindfulness In and Out of the Classroom by Meena Srinivasan and ermahgerd, friends. I cannot recommend this book more highly. I'm barely a fourth of the way through, but Srinivasan is already blowing my mind(fulness).

Allow me to take a moment to blow your mind (maybe). 

"Students are reflections of their teachers."

Duh, right? I mean, duh. I know that, I say it to myself and others all the time in one way or another, that children are products of their environment. But somehow, reading those six little words as they sat on the page so unassuming was all at once a reprimand and a call to action.

Oh my goodness, it's me. This whole time I've been wondering what was wrong with some of my students, why they so cray? What is wrong with them? When suddenly I was confronted with the glaring truth- something was wrong with me. 

What was wrong with me exactly? My focus. I was focused on good ol' me. Little Johnny is making me feel frazzled, little Suzy is making me angry, Little Timmy is just so annoying right now. Instead of taking a step back, breathing deep and asking myself why. Why are my certain students feeling, behaving, or acting in this way? And then, how. How can I help? What can I do?

Oh man, y'all. I thought I had this teaching business all figured out, but it seems I'm still learning too. 

Aborigine Didgeridoos (2nd Grade)

Fear not, my fellow teachers! The end of the year approaches! But really, who am I kidding? We'll still be going to professional development seminars, planning lessons, reading books, and doing all manner of things that are not resting our weary selves. There is no rest for a teacher.

It's been a beautiful, long, crazy second year of teaching and my kiddos and I are spending the last weeks of school exploring the vivid world of Aborigine art. While my kinder and 1st graders were making cotton swab dot paintings, my 2nd graders were tackling a much more musical task: the didgeridoo.

When I got my art room last year it had some pretty interesting finds hidden away in cabinets from the former teacher such as about forty two foot long cardboard tubes. I knew they were going to come in handy so I held on to them for almost two years until the time was right! And that time was last week.

Many of my 2nd graders were students of mine last year in first grade and had already explored Aborigine dot paintings, so I knew they needed more. So many tubes + excited students = amazing Didgeridoos!

Didgeridoos are fascinating Aboriginal instruments, simple in design but powerful in aesthetics. If you've never taken a listen I highly suggest it, the sound is very unique especially to my untrained ear!

• Day One and Two: Sketches! While listening to some didgeridoo music we explored Aborigine symbols and I encouraged my students to craft narratives or stories with the symbols in their sketches. It took a minute to wrap their cute little heads around, but once they got the hang of it I was blown away by their creativity. We had just talked about butterflies so symmetry ended up playing an unintended role in their designs!
  
• Day Three: Painting Tubes! I will admit that I had the MOST anxiety over tube painting- I had crazy nightmares of paint being everywhere. Clothes! Hair! Faces! And my fears were confirmed! But we survived thanks to an in class sink and many baby wipes. So. Many. Baby. Wipes. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Day Four: More Sketching! I'm a big fan of pencil first, paint second so I had my students re-draw their sketches on their didgeridoo before we went back and painted them. I think it saved a lot of disappointment later because despite taking an extra class period to do, the kiddos were able to really get a feel for how different it is to work with a curved surface. 

• Day Five and Six: Painting Again! My students loved this project mainly because it involved so much painting and if they could paint every day of the week they really would. I had them paint with cotton swabs so we could hone those dot painting skills we picked up last year and it was a fun challenge for them.
  
  
  
  

I give you the Aborigine Didgeridoo! Brought to you by my wonderful 2nd Graders!

And they make noise! I'm not sure if I'd call it music, but a real didgeridoo has basically the same construction, so a more talented musician could probably figure it out. Sorry, Parents! Sometimes art is loud. ;]

Arpillera Inspired Landscapes (Kindergarten)

     It's not really a secret (at least not in my own head!) that I have a huge art teacher crush on Cassie Stephens. Her blog is fantastic and I hereby command everyone to go check her out immediately because she is the well dressed, funky fabulous art teacher we all dream of being. So when I chanced upon her Chilean Arpillera inspired 2nd grade lesson on Pinterest I was like ERMAHGERD ALL OF THIS RIGHT NOW. But! My 2nd graders were deep in the mountains of Panama exploring Molas-there was no time to travel to Chile! Then a thought struck me: kindergarten. 

     Of course! My brilliant little kinders could definitely pull this off, such famous last words. Seriously, it was great and I'm pretty sure I learned more than they did. 

     First off, aprilleras are stunning pieces of fiber folk art from the Andes and to learn more about them, check out this prezi by Cassie Stephens. I know she is AH-MAZ-ING, I'm pretty sure she figured out how to live in a reality of 28 hour days because seriously, how does she have time for this? I didn't end up using the prezi for my kinders because it was geared for a slightly older audience, but I was able to modify the information for 5 year old brains and they were excited! I was excited! We were all excited! And then we made textured paper. 

     I have 30 minute class periods but I have the rare advantage of seeing my students every day, so we can get more than you'd expect accomplished in a week. 

• Class One: Textured Paper! I ran through this like a drill sergeant. Smocks! Trays! Paint! Brushes! Texture tools (tooth brush, fork, sponges, etc)! BEGIN! I have never seen my kiddos have so much fun as they did when I let them go (kind of) wild on some paper with some paint. 

• Class Two: Making Mountains! We ripped, we tore, we conquered the Andes mountains all while talking about foreground, middleground, and background. 

• Class Three and Four: Decorate Them Mountains! In Cassie Stephen's lesson she had her students make origami houses and it was too adorable to pass up. Plus origami is great for those little fine motor skills. I took two class periods to let them decorate their mountains and traveled around from table to table helping each group make their houses. I had a few exceptional students who needed no help from me, but most of my students needed some extra assistance on the final fold to make the roof. 

• Class Five: Make Some Holes, Sew Some Yarn! I punched the holes in the each landscape myself and my wrist still hasn't forgiven me, but it was much easier than if I'd tried to have my kiddos do it. Such tiny hands! Sewing yarn through the holes to create a border was one of the hardest things for them to do. We take that kind of coordination for granted as adults!

Arpillera Inspired Landscapes Achievement Unlocked!

     During that week I pulled more than a few clumps of my hair out because at first I kept comparing my students' artwork to the beautiful artwork I saw on the original lesson. I'm disappointed to admit it wasn't until around Day Three when I was suddenly hit in the face with some truth. This project is not for me and it's not about how aesthetically pleasing I find their work. It's about my kinder babies and their development as brilliant artists. How can they discover their sense of pride and creativity if I'm telling them where to put their mountains and which colors work well together? This is about them and they were fabulous. 

Paper Molas (1st and 2nd Grade)

As we travel around the world, my students and I are stopping to visit Central and South America starting with Panama! I admittedly was not as well versed in the art of Latin America as I should've been before I began this adventure and then I discovered the molas of the Guna people. 

The word "mola" in Gulegaya, the language of the Guna people, means "shirt" or "clothing" and the mola itself is a beautifully decorated cloth panel heavily influenced by the flora and fauna of Panama. 

The vivid colors and bold lines of these cloth masterpieces had me like what! I knew I had to share them with my kiddos and they loved them too! My students are always impressing me, but I have to admit, they outdid themselves this time. 

On my solo travels through the wide world of the Internet, I came across many lesson plans that used the mola as a way to demonstrate or reinforce shape and cutting skills. Instead, I decided to have my students think about their pencils as a needle and thread. We wove our way through exploring line quality and decorative designs. For some of my kiddos it was a struggle to imagine a fish or bird without a "background," but as you can see they soon found the experience liberating. 

This one is particularly impressive. Notice her use of the leaves around the bird. So amazing! And from a seven year old! If only she had finished hah!

I will definitely be using this mola project in the years to come. Not only did I have a blast, my students produced some amazing work. In the future I'll give them more time! It was kind of amazing how engrossed they became and how meticulous they were- 6 and 7 year olds are not known for their attention to detail!

Happy art-ing!

Egyptian Hieroglyphics and Cartouches (1st and 2nd Grade)

In my room I love to travel the world and explore different cultures and artistic traditions with my kiddos. Recently we traveled to Egypt to explore the Egyptian pyramids and ancient hieroglyphics. My students had a pretty fun time with it.

We started off by learning about the hieroglyphic alphabet and how to spell our names. I did this with all of my grade levels and modified it for different ages. I only teach kindergarten, first, and second grade right now so it lets me really focus in on early elementary ages. My first and second graders then took their new hieroglyphic skills to some clay and crafted cartouches! 

Check out their amazing work. 

Welcome!

Welcome! Welcome! To my humble little art blog where I hope to post the many accomplishments of my beautiful students and my own adventures in teachings.

My name is Mrs. Grella and my focus is on developing a sense of self awareness and artistic appreciation in my kiddos. I want them to be bold and fearless in their lives by teaching them that mistakes are opportunities to learn and there's more than one way to solve a problem.  I believe positive reinforcement, clear procedures, and stickers can solve just about anything.

That's me!