Miss Art of Teaching

My Stage 5 class (Year 9/10 combined class): I love giving students a topic and then the freedom to choose their own technique and material selection. It is encouraging to see students take ownership of their work while I sit back as a mentor. I love how they are so focused and willing to help each other.  This was not my favourite class at the start of this year as there was a bit of a tension with a small group of people who was not ready to have me as their new art teacher. They had a real connection with their previous teacher. After a while, they started to enjoy my teaching style and me being my true self.  Now all the lessons are seriously SUPER fun. I LOVE this class to bits. My tips for building relationships with students: 1. Be honest about how you feel. I reminded that particular group of students it was not healthy to constantly compare my teaching practice and personality with their previous art teacher.  2. Show them that you genuinely care about...

Every year we start off with a self-portrait unit with the Year 7 students. I decided to spice things up and take Snapchat selfies of my students. We used the dog filter on Snapchat as it still allowed a reasonable amount of realism to be portrayed in their artworks. I teach 3 x Year 7 classes. Instructions. 1. Take individual photos of students using the dog filter on Snapchat. 2. Print out the photos as A4.  3. Create a grid for students. Photocopy a class set. 4. Using the same grid, photocopy it onto overhead sheets. Make a class set.  5. Attach the overhead sheet over the photo. 6. Show students how to use the grid system. I like to start from the nose. I always print out an example and attach it onto my whiteboard and show them how to follow the grid system. A great artist to introduce is Chuck Close. He uses the grid system in his work.  If students have trouble following the grid system, make them a view finder so they can isolate th...

Since last year, I have been using Canva to make quick poster designs and even performance tickets. Canva is a free website that allows users to make quick and simple designs. They have templates ready for users to create designs for web or print. I use it to promote things that are happening around the school since I am a Facebook admin. I tend to do it mostly for my faculty. I may revisit Canva to make a few posters for my hamburger analogy. I am missing visuals to make my resource more powerful.   This is also a great website to use with primary school or high school students. They can use it to create presentations, flyers, posters, invitations and so on. You can edit photos, add text, elements, stickers, borders and frames. A few things like stickers can cost money but that is if you choose to use specific designs. Above: An example of the working space on Canva. On the left are the design templates, on the right is your canvas to freely move things around and change ...

The back wall in my classroom is work in progress. One side is filled with 'Happy notes' from Year 7-11 students and t he other side is starting a completely new trend...memes by students. I love the DIY factor and how it is a group effort to make the wall look nicer.  I am also planning to start a mural when the Year 6 students come over for their art lessons. Every Tuesday afternoo n, the local primary school sends students over for lessons. I was quite excited to find a large black cloth while cleaning my room over the holidays. I am planning to create a mural with big wings on top of it. The inspiration is from 'The What Lifts You Campaign' by Kelsey Montague. Next project: Adaptations that I found online:

The first day back was SUPER busy... The day started off with three new Year 7 enrolments. I greeted them among trying to photocopy resources for my five-period day and my attempts at moving all the things into my classroom that I have been stealing from home. I provided the new students with their school diary, assessment booklets, uniform information, fee information sheet, mobile phone policy ALL before school even started. I also managed to assign the students into classes. Instead of having period 1, there was a formal Anzac Day service. The History teachers and Student Leaders directed the ceremony. They did a fantastic job even down to the finer details - red handmade poppies on skewers. I was happy to see my students again. They were quite eager to share their holiday stories. I had to use my 'NOISE' strategy to quiet down my first class. It worked tremendously well after flipping through two letters. Link to 'NOISE' ...

I finally made an Instagram account based on this blog. Quite excited as I am able to hashtag away and share resources. I started the account today and have shared 25 photos. I plan to slow it down and share around one a day.  Please like and support my Instagram account. I am happy to return the favour! #teachersfollowteachers

Drum rolls...  Welcome to TERM 2! I wanted to look a bit professional today so I went for 'navy' colours. The outfit might give you an illusion that I am wearing a dress but I am wearing a $15 Tommy Hilfiger sleeveless blouse top and a $50 high waisted pair of pants. I have been avoiding the pants for a while as it gives me a fuller figure and it is uncomfortably tight on the top. Probably not the ideal outfit to wear when I need to sit through more than 5 hours of teacher development information sessions. Above: Outfit of the day and photos of my Shih Tzu. It was so hard to walk out the door today! For our morning session, we had a guest speaker (Paul Hewitt) come in from the NSW Education Standards Association (NESA) to talk about 'Stronger HSC Standards' (a credential awarded to secondary students who successfully complete senior high school level studies). He went through 7 new focuses. I was interested on the minimum literacy and numeracy sta...