Draw Big!

If I give you 12 x 18" paper I want you to draw 12 x 18"!  It never ceases to amaze me how many students shy away from "drawing big"!  They want to use just a small portion of the paper.  Isn't that how many kids (and adults) also see life?  Rather than filling up our life "living big" how many of us just use a small portion of our life?

I want my students to draw big! and fill up that paper!  I want my students to live big! and fill up their life!  I want my own children to draw big and live big!  I am on a forever quest to live big!

Read my post that explains my posters!  https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4886161127089434752#editor/target=post;postID=3693396771303203660;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=0;src=postname

Wow! That's not a lot of time!

I see my students once a week, for 50 minutes.  Assuming that they start with me in Kindergarten I will have them for 6 years.  What that really amounts to is 180 hours total over 6 years.  Assuming that no one is ever sick, on a field trip, pulled out for pictures, testing, or anything else I have approximately 25 school days with each student over the course of the six years.  Due to this limited amount of time I have come up with a curriculum that grows with the kids, but repeats and spirals.  I add in new things, but I also keep the familiar.  My many slogans are a great example, I introduce them in kindergarten, make posters for them and refer to them often.  The best part is that they are all also great "life lessons"

All The Best Ideas Are Stolen!

So for many years (like 30) I have lived with the mantra "All the best ideas are stolen" and "Don't reinvent the wheel -unless you have to" and the older I get the more I think that these two sayings are gold!   There are so many wonderful ideas out there, Pinterest brings to mind a few million!  That it is hard to imagine that anyone ever creates anything new.  I get my ideas for lessons and for art from everywhere-the internet, famous artworks, things my school kids say, other teachers...the list is endless!  However, I never ever trace, or "scan in" anything that I have not created.   Like I tell my school kids-once you do that you are merely a xerox machine!

"Hey Art Teacher" is something I hear a lot!  Not only from new students and new kindergarteners but also from students who have left (aged out) my art room.  Some people get upset when students refer to them as something other than their name.  I do not.  Simply because every single time that a student has said "Hey Art Teacher" or "You used to be my art teacher" it is always always always said with a smile!  To me-that genuine smile- is worth so much more than a student remembering my name-it is a student remembering.....so very many things!

Day 1 - The Beginning!

Today is day 1, which means that absolutely anything is possible!