Working on Another Blog....

   Blogging has been a great outlet for me in the past 6 months.  I can't believe 73 people follow what I write.  I love being a part of this art teacher community. You guys are great and I am very thankful!
   I have been struggling with the idea of starting another blog that is mainly for my students.  I wanted to be able to put up pictures of the kids working and links to neat art cites.  Here is what I have come up with so far... http://dundeeart.blogspot.com/
  I would love to hear your feedback and any recommendation for fun art websites for kids.  Some of the posts are modified repeats from this blog, but others are not.  I have found that loading pictures as a album has been a lot easier too.  Thanks!

Bookmarking with ICyte

 I love, love, love looking for art ideas on the internet, especially blogs.  My only problem....I can't keep track of all the good ideas.  This is especially tricky with blogs when they are constantly being updated.  I have a solution!   In my technology class one of my colleagues presented on the bookmarking website ICyte.  This site is free to educators and allows you to bookmark a page just how it is at the time you viewed it.  If the page changes, you still have the original saved.  Also, you can make folders aka "Projects" and add tags.

Here is a screen shot of my ICyte page....

I hope this will be helpful!

Oh and I used Jing to take the screen shot (another cool tool).

A Special Surprise!!!!

Yesterday, I received a special gift in the mail.  I thought I would share it with you, my art friends, because you can appreciate the honor of such a gift.  Mr. Welt sent me an original James Rizzi painting as a Christmas gift.  How awesome!  I had the privilege of meeting Henry last year when my husband and I went to New York City. He said this painting reminded him of us.  It is titled “Me and You. You and Me.”     This gift has special meaning to me because of the difficult things I have gone through in the past year.  Both my parents and my only sibling are chronically ill and were hospitalized several times this past year.  I started my first year in a new school and was struggling to not let my personal life  impact my effectiveness as a teacher.  I felt  that there was so much more I wanted to do with my students, but I was emotionally drained.  Then I started teaching about James Rizzi.  The events that occurred (see previous posts) after getting in contact with Henry and corresponding, were amazing.  I was receiving the affirmation that I needed at such a difficult time.   I am the only art teacher in my building and one of two in my district.  Sometimes I question my skills as a teacher because I am all alone ( I am sure some of you can relate).  It may sound silly, but I needed to be valued.  So…thank you for valuing what I do as a teacher!

Things that make me happy…Kokeshi Dolls

Today a colleague and I were talking, and she got me thinking about Kokeshi Dolls. I just love them! Aren’t they cute. Above are the dolls in my craft room. I made the two on the right out of paper just for fun. Below are some cute Kokeshi Dolls I found on ebay. I believe this is the same seller I got my dolls from. A good idea for my X-mas gift (hint, hint, Tim)

Last year I taught a Japanese art enrichment class. Here are a couple dolls my students made. We used toilet paper roll, foil, plaster wrap and acrylic paint. These were made by 4th graders.

I love this fabric

So I have a slight obsession with fabric even thought I can't really sew. I love this new Matisse inspired fabric by Alexander Henry http://www.hancocks-paducah.com/Item--i-AH-7346-A. I think I need to make something out of it for my art room. Maybe a bulletin board or curtains....