art ed digested

A music teacher and friend, Anne Sheridan, created this unit as part of her master’s thesis, and I love the intersections of dance, music, art and history. While her unit is geared towards middle school or high school aged students, the themes transfer easily to any age level.

This is a great example of how teachers can use voicethread to make a beautiful presentation, collaborate with colleagues, and organize lessons.

Are you bored? Why not grow a molded gourd portrait ? How about making a toy dinette set out of gum wrappers? Or perhaps you’d like to make an inexpensive aluminum forge?

This project is one of uncountable scores of “instructables” on Instructables.com which proclaims that it is “The World’s Biggest Show and Tell.”

When I feel that I am lacking inspiration, I snoop around on this site and get excited about all the wonderful and strange things I can learn to create. This is a great resource for teachers in all subjects- instructables are all sorted by categories such as art, technology, science and music.

And in the spirit of Earth Day today, there’s also a set of instructables that are green.

(While this site is great for adults to browse, it is not always kid-safe, so make sure you check the content before you share it with students.)

Our fourth grade students have been hard at work on their Artist-Inspired Masks, and are nearing the final stage of adding mixed media to the painted surfaces.

I am ecstatic with the range of ideas being expressed, and the thought process students are using! There will be exciting surprises once students bring in their additional materials from home to add texture and meaning.

Check out all of the masks here!

I’ve also set up a new ArtEdDigested wiki to collaborate on lesson planning with my colleagues here at Kingsley Montessori School, and hopefully my new educator friends that I am meeting here on Edublogs and in the Twitterverse. Ah, technology, I love you.

Over spring break, a ukulele magically appeared in my hands. I’ve been playing non-stop since then, and have developed some fairly amazing fingertip callouses.

Since I sing, I’d never been too sad about my lack of instrument but I am now seeing hilarious possibilities for the classroom as well as entertaining my roommates. I am particularly interested in playing metal/rock on the uke. It’s fun to share my new skills with students here at school, and show them that I have to start at the beginning just like they do.

Perhaps I’ll share a little uke with you soon…

The third grade class will be creating a silent film to narrate with music as part of their recorder music unit. Here are some examples to whet their interest: