My family and I had a great trip to Paris. It was rather cold. But I saw all the major works of art that I've read about and studied all these years. My heart skipped a beat seeing the Van Gogh's, Monet's, and Renoir's. There is an awesome moment when you step into the space where the artist stood - I love those moments! I shared as much as I could with students over Instagram. It was fun chatting back and forth and seeing their comments.
It was cold in Paris ya'll! My family and I had a great trip to Paris. It was rather cold. But I saw all the major works of art that I've read about and studied all these years. My heart skipped a beat seeing the Van Gogh's, Monet's, and Renoir's. There is an awesome moment when you step into the space where the artist stood - I love those moments! I shared as much as I could with students over Instagram. It was fun chatting back and forth and seeing their comments.
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I've been a little nostalgic lately - been thinking about some of the teachers that helped to shape the person I am today. Recently, I was invited to an art exhibit in Carrollton, Georgia. The featured artist was my painting professor from college - Bruce Bobick. The invite came through Facebook. I replied that I would check my calendar-and his reply to me was - "I would like to see you while I can still see and hear!" Needless to say we dropped everything and went.
Mr. Bobick is retired now, still painting and exhibiting his work. He was the Art Department Chair and my advisor at West Georgia. I have so many fond memories of him and my time spent on the third floor of the Humanities building in the Art Department. Students could check out keys to the studio back then because, we would be up all hours of the night working on projects. (Shh...I still have my key). I remember his walk and his mannerisms like it was yesterday. He always carried a sketchbook and a pen. He would hustle into class and say "OK what's going on in here". He made it around to every student to talk to them about their work. He wanted to know what you were thinking about and how your projects were going. At the end of the semester we would leave our work on a drafting table to be graded. Mr. Bobick would leave your grade on a small piece of paper tucked in your pile of paintings. Sometimes you would see just a grade. If you were lucky you would get a "Great Job". I never wondered or questioned whether or not my art was "good enough", because he always encouraged me to keep going. His motto was "Hard Work Pays Off" - a phrase I say over and over to my students. I was not planning on being a teacher. I went to college to study the fine arts. It wasn't until I was an assistant director of a community art gallery/theater that I realized that I needed Art in my life- Every Day. It is what challenges me. It is something I am good at. It is how I think. I am grateful to Mr. Bobick for all the life lessons he taught me, for pushing me and for believing in me and mostly for instilling in me a LOVE of ART. I can only hope to be that kind of teacher to my students. Bonjour! I am traveling to Paris this spring! I have all my classes helping me practice my French. We are greeting each other and counting to 10. We will be taking a look over the next few months at all the famous works of art that I will see. And I plan to Tweet and Instagram my journey so that all students can experience the fun with me! Follow me on Twitter at Mrs. Avery@medlockartists and on Instagram at medlockartists Mrs. Avery@medlockartists
MEDLOCK BRIDGE is a National Blue Ribbon School!!! - which is super cool and well deserved by students, faculty and administration! But the best part is that on the official US Department of Education site you will see a photograph of my classroom! Follow this link to see for yourself and read up on us!
"The National Blue Ribbon Schools Program is an important part of the US Department of Education's efforts to seek, identify, replicate, and scale up education practices that work. Secretary Duncan praised the National Blue Ribbon Schools as “a national treasure,” and challenged them to share their knowledge with peers in other schools and districts, “to become engines of educational innovation, galvanizing others to transform their schools as well.” I am proud to say that I am a part of this distinctive honor. The arts are an integral part of education and I am so happy that the caption under the photo reads "We are a portrait of diversity at Medlock Bridge." Check out the galleries as we are finally starting to finish up some projects. "GOOD ART TAKES TIME" ya know! We celebrated International Dot day this year by reading the book "The Dot" and creating our own dots. We displayed them all together in big dots. I had seen something similar on Pinterest and decided to try it.
I love this photo of Me and The Scream (Joseph)! The art show was so much fun! Make sure you check out the photos on the Art Show page. I can't believe summer is over and we are already into school 10 days. I'm looking forward to a new year with lots of fun art projects and spending time learning with my students! I can't believe our Student Art Show is next week! Where did the time go???
STUDENT ART SHOW 2014 Thursday, May 1 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm In The Mustang Café` Medlock Bridge Elementary We have a wonderful evening planned to Celebrate the Arts! Students in grades Kindergarten through 5th grade will exhibit their best work of art from the year and the Chorus and Steel Drum Band will perform. This wonderful show is hosted by Artome` ARTOME` frames each work of art and sets up a beautiful display. The cost of the frame is $25.00 and can be purchased the evening of the show. This allows you to take home your child's artwork framed and matted and display it proudly in your home. The Medlock Bridge Foundation sponsors this event and accepts Credit, Debit, Cash or Check. Please make your check out to “MBES FOUNDATION” NOTE: If your family is unable to attend the show on May 1st, you may send in a check or cash for $25.00 from April 28 – May 1st. Your check should be made out to "MBES Foundation" and have your child's name and teacher listed on it. All of the pre-ordered frames will be collected when the show is over that evening and will be available at the school for you to pick up. If you would like to have multiple copies framed as gifts, ARTOME` provides that service as well. Email me at [email protected] if you have any questions. We just finished these Portraits in First Grade. I had seen this on Pinterest as an oil pastel drawing - but I wanted to do it as a cut paper assignment. I have had so many compliments on this bulletin board. You can't walk past it without smiling! Funny Story...I am sure you all have heard or were involved in the Atlanta SNOWPOCALYPSE of 2014. A day that will go down in history as the day Atlanta freaked out over 2 inches of snow. Well, there I was teaching - no clue what the weather was doing outside until my first grade class showed up at 12:35. We were getting ready to work on these portraits of us "catching a snowflake on our tongue" when it started snowing huge FAT snowflakes! We turned out the lights and just watched it in awe for a minute or two - because we go years without snow down here! - then I called each table and let them run out into the courtyard to catch a snowflake on their tongue! We got so tickled! After that we got back to work - totally excited! And as soon as class was over - school got cancelled and we were all dismissed - umm with the rest of Atlanta. It was a MESS. But, just to be clear - it wasn't just snow - it was ICE! It took me an hour to travel 8 miles home and that was nothing compared to a co-worker who was in the car with a five year old for 22 hours! Can you imagine? CHECK OUT THE PORTRAITS CLOSE UP...
Right before winter break I taught all 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders how to make snowflakes. I can't believe how much they loved it! Here are some of the snowflake banners we have created (Thanks Pinterest!). They turned out beautiful. I haven't used much glitter over the years-so everyone was super excited about the end results. Last week I began sending stacks of snowflake banners down to the classrooms. I asked each teacher to hang them up inside and outside of their classrooms. Younger grades are doing some other winter projects and we will be finishing those up soon. Pretty soon our school will look like a Winter Wonderland.
THESE will CRACK you up! Made with Funny Movie Maker. Well here it is...a camparison and contrast of The Potato Eaters and Starry Night! I am so proud of these kids! Ipads are fun to use and I am getting the hang of using them in the classroom. I mentioned in an earlier post some of the apps I have used in class, but I thought I would mention them again. Explain Everything, Funny Movie Maker, Imotion, Imovie, Puppet Pals and Audio Boo. I have discovered that you have to export everything you do in an app to someplace in order to share it. So I have a YOUTUBE channel now. High Tech huh? Working on it...stay tuned.
In the meantime, I'll just go the old fashioned route and post pictures of what we are working on in each grade level. Making sure our students are collage and career ready is the number one priority here in our county. In the art room we are diving in to learning 21st century skills and focusing on the 4 C's. 5th graders are studying Vincent Can Gogh and have made a collaborative work of art based on his "12 Sunflowers" painting. They have also been communicating with each other in groups to create a presentation based on a Van Gogh topic I gave them. Students are thinking about art, talking about art and making connections with each other to understand Van Gogh's work.
My first idea came from looking at "Pinterest" (which I cannot live without) and coming across a project that another school had done - having each student create/draw/color a flower to add to a vase. I loved the way it looked and thought we'd try it. It turned out great and we already have one hanging in the hall. Eventually, each class will make one. In the meantime I had been trying to teach myself how to use the ipad. (Our framed art show with Artome last year, raised enough money for the art department to purchase 2 ipads.) I started looking at all the art apps and trying to figure out how to use 2 ipads with up to 32 kids in a class. The funny thing is I ended up not using any kind of drawing app. I wanted to take a drawing lesson based on Van Gogh and add expand it. Here's what I came up with.... I have 7 tables of 4 students each in my room. I gave each table an assignment that required the students to communitcate and collaborate with their peers. For example, one table had to learn facts about Van Gogh, select one of his portraits that I uploaded into the Funny Movie Maker app on the ipad and record themselves "being" Van Gogh. This app allows you to use a photograph of a face, cut out the mouth, film and record your mouth saying words - so it looks like Van Gogh is talking. These were hysterical! *The other assignments were: "If Van Gogh's palette could talk what would it say"? *Act out this joke...the one about the robber who did not have enought "Monet" to buy "Degas" to make de "Van Gogh". One group used the Puppet Pals app - very cute! *Compare and Contrast "The Potato Eaters" to "Starry Night" using the Explain Everything app. I pretty much said "Hey guys, I found this app - I know how to do 3 things with it - see what you can do with it." THEY TOOK IT AND RAN WITH IT! It was a great presentation of kids discussing works of art on the fly. Lastly, we acted out a current event. In September of this year, a painting that had been in an attic for 60 years was authenticated with x-rays and a chemical analysis and proven to be a true Van Gogh. We used our TV studio and the green screen to act it out. So my students did all this awesome stuff using the 4 C's and technology and I can't figure out how to share it with you. Stay tuned... |
AuthorHi! My name is English Avery. Archives
August 2016
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