Say, "Hello" to My Little Friends

It's time to get serious about classroom management.  This past summer I spent a lot of time trying to create a new plan for my classroom.  I wanted to create a special environment that any student would want to be in.  I started by creating art for my classroom, searching Pinterest for ideas, and brainstorming by myself.  I worked really hard to come up with a plan for the school year.  I wanted my room to stand out as a place where excellent things happen.  I wanted a new plan for my classroom that would motivate my students to behave and want to create art.

I ended up with two new friends.  They are Class Dojo and the "No Yell" bell.  Seriously, if you don't have these, get them.

I absolutely love Class Dojo.  I am using it two ways.  I use it to monitor student individual behavior but I also have each class set up as table behavior.  I have two classes on Class DoJo for each of my classes.  I did this because I wanted to create a reward system that was fun for my students and would force the ones that don't like to clean up to clean up.  When my students come into my classroom they know that they must be seated when the bell rings in order to get a point.  I have very few tardies anymore.  There is less wasted time getting students to settle down because they know I am giving them points if they are quiet.  Class Dojo is so easy to set up but what is really nice is I can constantly change the positive and negative behaviors.  I have added things like "turning in quality artwork" to "volunteering".  Students know that I am looking at them and thinking about their behavior and it keeps them on their toes.  Luckily, my sixth grade students already knew about Class Dojo because a couple of their exploratory teachers had been using it last year.  My seventh and eighth grade students were unfamiliar with it but loved the cute little avatars.

At first, some of my 8th grade students thought it was silly and they were going to get many negative points.  I told them that this was going to be their behavior grade.  In reality, after they saw some of the rewards the students were getting they started to take it more seriously.  I have a class of 31 8th grade students with only 6 girls in it.  Many of the boys are students that aren't really into school and have many behavior issues in most of their classes.  I discovered that Class Dojo is really working for them.  One day Class Dojo was down and the difference in attitude and behavior was amazing.  I was so happy when the Internet was back to normal.  I display Class Dojo on my projector so students know which tables are getting points and even which students are getting points.

My reward system is interesting.  I told students they could negotiate what their reward would be with me.  I have a giant bucket of Dum Dum suckers, Little Debbie type cookies bought at the Dollar store, trinkets from Smile Makers, and any combination of those.  Students can also bring their music for a week or go make a movie together and replace one of their projects.  Students can replace a project with a different type of art project.  I am open to negotiate with them and make them feel like they really got something great!
Some 6th and 7th grade students decided it would be fun to learn about pixelation.  They got to create a stop motion animation of people.  I also let them work with Sam Animation and One True Media.  So, while they were having fun, they were still learning!  Here are two videos made this week from students who chose this as their reward:
This first one was made by sixth grade students.

 This one was made by seventh grade students.

When a table of students win an award for getting points on Class DoJo, I allow them to have these trophies on their table for a week if they want to kind of "show off" that they are special.

If a student wants to have their music for a week, I have them put the trophy in front of them so I am reminded that they earned the privilege.  Class Dojo is so much fun for my students and even me.  It makes my classroom run smoothly and my "No Yell" bell alerts students to listen or clean up.

The NO Yell bell is digital.  It has 7 sounds on it.  I use two of the sounds.  Number 4 sounds like some alien ship.  I use it to alert students to the fact that I need to say something.  It is highly effective.  Often times students don't pay attention to their teachers which causes teachers to escalate their voice.  I am no stranger to that one.  The No Yell bell stops that behavior.  The students settle right down because they know I need to talk with them.  I use number 6 as our clean up bell.  It is like a clicking sound and then a buzzer like you are running out of time.  When that bell goes off my students get right to work on their clean up jobs.  I have color coded the tables and I have a chart on my white board that I rotate the colors on so that each week students have different jobs.

I have even more things to share about how I set up my room this year but I will save that for the coming weeks.  I hope this helps anyone out there reading my blog.  Your two best friends could be Class Dojo and the No Yell bell.  I know they are mine!

New School Year

I have been meaning to post pictures of my classroom and explain what I did to get ready for the school year.  However, I have been so busy that I haven't had time.  Tonight I'm going to share some of the things that I have done to get ready for the new school year.  I'll follow up with more over the next week or so.  My focus has been on classroom management and creating an environment that is fun and organized.  I spent quite a bit of time this summer stealing ideas from Pinterest and creating my own ideas to make my classroom a wonderful place to be.  You might like to know that I had the opportunity to help design my classroom several years ago when we were building our new middle school.  Most of the design of the room is mine.  There were some changes made with placement of the storage, kiln, and office rooms, and electricity hook up for the pottery wheels.  However, for the most part, it is largely my design, minus the color choices.  They didn't go for my colors, but I can't complain as I'm happy with my room.

As you enter my art classroom this is what will greet you.

The painting says it all for me.  I created this painting several years ago to showcase the concept that it takes a village to raise a child.  I believe in this 100%.  We all must do whatever it takes to help get students to become positive, intelligent, caring people that are our future.  Over the years it has been damaged by students that lack self esteem and hurt.  I don't take it personally.  I just repair it and put it back up.  In the painting I have included my little MSU (Michigan State University) person to represent my alma mater.  When you walk into my room there is a bank of computers.

The door is actually to the left of these computers.  As you look at the pictures to follow remember that the trash hasn't been dumped and you might see a knife out because I was unpacking a lot of things.  I don't normally have a knife sitting around my room.  Here are some pictures from around the room.

The next pictures are of some display boards that I am using this year for bulletin boards and also to block out my pottery wheels.  These display boards I purchased for my advanced art class to put up their annal art show.  I have 15 of these that are shared by two students to create their own special display.  I had never thought of using these to block out an area in my art room.  However, when the administration took them and used them in our in school suspension room I thought it might be a good idea for my own classroom.  Over the years, I have discovered that middle school boys like to fool around with pottery wheels at any time.  They are fascinated by them.  The electicty hoses hang down from the ceiling which are also fun to play with, so I decided to hide these this year.  (This was not my choice but it was a safety issue.)  When we use the wheels, I can wheel my display boards out of the way easily and put them back when we are finished.  That whole back area is off limits to my students.  I have a sink back there that I am keeping for my prep area.  My room is quite large.  I wanted to make it smaller because middle school students need to be confined a bit or they will run through the room.  There is plenty of room for them to work and I have actually taken over about a third of the room with my computer area, prep area, and "chill zone" area.

The next pictures are of the area I created for my computer, projector, document camera, and other some other organizational features.

Here are a few more pictures.  In my next post, I will explain some of the organizational things I did this year to create a better managed classroom.  I am excited about this new school year and I am loving how my room is working out.  The kids are enjoying it and all of the new paintings and posters I put up this year.  They aren't even missing the sink as I have three other ones in my room!

I will close with a picture of my old, ugly stool.  I should say it is cute now as I painted it this summer!  I put the words, "Be creative and inspire others." just to remind me of why I am a teacher.  I am not here to make some kid miserable.  My goals are to help kids reach for the stars and discover how art has made the world a better place, and can have a great impact on their own lives.  Have a great school year!

Inspiring a School

I believe the art room is a great place to inspire other people.  For the past two years on our end of the year activity day I have invited students to come to the art room and paint pieces that will be installed around our school.  This past spring I decided to paint core subject artworks for their individual wings at our school.  At the end of the 2011-2012 school year the administration decided to change the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade wings or hallways of our school into Language Arts, Math, and Social Studies, with Science having a lab located midway down each wing.  This involved massive moving of many teachers' classrooms.  The plan was to allow core teachers to work with each other to plan curriculum across grade levels to teach the common core.  When we first got back to school a fellow teacher and friend asked me if I could have my students paint paintings to designate each new wing.  I was extremely busy and just didn't have the time to do it but it stayed in my head, like most things do, festering, until I decided I would indeed do something about it.  I had some of my advanced students work on these at the end of the school year.  They came in for a couple of weekends before the end of the school year and some came in on the activity day.  In addition to this, I decided I couldn't leave out the exploratory teachers.  We worked on a piece for the music wing and just before school started, I called a few of my students and they came in and worked on a piece for the art, technology, wood, and metal wing.  I probably should create two more paintings to make everyone happy, but I am out of time.  They would be for physical education and one for the home economics and life skills teacher.  I need to let them know that I haven't forgotten about them. They are included on a special piece which I will share at the end of this post.  Here is the result of our effort.

My students were so proud of their artwork.  We went online and got inspiration from images we saw and combined those with other ideas we had.  Then the students painted these on their own asking for advice as needed.  I think my students are awesome.  These were 7th and 8th grade students.  They painted on large 24 inch by 30 inch stretched canvas with acrylic paint.

During the school year, teachers have PLC (Professional Learning Community) meetings every Thursday morning from 7:00 until 8:30.  Students have a delayed start at this time.  During my meeting time one morning, I had a great idea and so I sketched out a plan for my students to make a large painting at the end of the school year to motivate our school.  We are the "Trojans".  I took our Trojan symbol and put it with puzzle pieces.  Into the puzzle pieces are all of our classes and sports.  I decided to ask everyone who looks at it a question?  How do you show your Trojan Pride?  Of course this is symbolic and we are all part of the puzzle that makes up our wonderful school.  My students made all color decisions with help from me to make sure the colors were balanced and on the activity day many students came in to paint.  After the activity day, my advanced students that had been working on the painting, took ownership and fixed anything they didn't like, and added all of the lettering.  I think this turned out fantastic and I know they are so proud of it.  This was made up of four stretched canvas paintings that are 20 inches by 30 inches.  We also painted with acrylic paint.  Check it out and I hope it inspires everyone that sees it!  This was put at the top of the stairs and I have received wonderful comments from people that have seen it.

Thinking About Going Back to School

It is getting close to the time when classes will start up again.  Some states have already started.  I have spent a fair amount of time already planning for this next school year.  I have placed my orders and some are starting to come in, so next week I will start getting my classroom ready.  I decided it might be fun to share a couple of videos that some of my 8th grade students made about bullying.

We all know that bullying can be a problem at school.  Last year I challanged my students to create an anti-bully message with animation.  The students were asked to use simple construction paper in the style of South Park.  Beyond that, I let them come up with their own ideas.  I just helped them with the technical aspects of video production.  This first one has a technical issue with the voice not be alligned properly.  I think they added a slide at the beginning and forgot to move their audio over.  It still is pretty funny and clever.

 
In the next video the students created nice art but I think it would have been better if they had different students doing the voices.  The students in this group chose to have a narrator which makes it a little less exciting.  If you decide to create animations with your students, I would suggest trying to get them to be silly and create the voices much like the first video.


I don't know if this next video solves the bullying problem but the kids had fun making it.  It appears that Timmy looks a little different with legs coming out of his head.  It has a point but I'm not sure in the end if they really get along.

You can see other animations and films that my students have made if you go to Youtube and type in ksvoboda100.  I have the students work with Sam Animation software and a document camera.  It is easy and works great.  Editing is done with Videopad editor software that can be downloaded online.  We use an Ipevo camera.  I highly recommend Ipevo because the camera is just $69.  Sam Animation used with Ipevo is so easy to teach students.  We have also used the iPad Sam Animation App.  It is less complete but works well and is easy to learn.  If anyone needs any advice about all of this feel free to contact me.

SmileMakers and Me

This week I received an email offer that I just couldn’t refuse.  The offer came from a company called “SmileMakers”.  The company sells many different items that appeal to educators or anyone working with small children looking for some arts and crafts, stickers, pencils, motivational trinkets, or even office supplies.  I was emailed because I am a blogger/educator.  The company is trying to expand their educational market.  SmileMakers is giving me an item of my choice from their online catalog, if I will write an online review of the product on my blog. 

 I am developing a special reward program in my art classroom, so I chose the “Kool Stuff Treasure Chest” as it has many items that might appeal to my middle school students.   I will not be able to write a full review until I get back to school and see how my students like these little treasures.  Until then, I thought I would share a link to the website, as it does look very interesting.  I expect to get my shipment within a week or so.  Here is the link, so check it out and have some fun shopping! 

 http://www.smilemakers.com/

Sturgis Middle School Art Show

This is video from the Sturgis Middle School annual art show held at the Sturges Young Civic Auditorium.  It was up for two weeks in May.

Snake Painting Worth Watching

I just had to share this video because it is fun to watch.  I show students how to paint like this but I have never painted a snake.  I think I'll try this as my 7th grade boys would love it!