My Teachers Pay Teachers Store is up!

I am very excited to have a new Teachers Pay Teachers store! I really enjoy making handouts, rubrics, and especially PORTFOLIOS each year, and I hope that many of you will enjoy using them too. I've sent out quite a number of these portfolios through email, and they were specifically made for my classes - the ones I have listed at the TpT store are a little more universal. There are three levels: K-1, 2-3, and 4-5, each with its own areas for vocabulary, color wheels, personalizing, and lots more.
Also in the store are some rubrics and idea starters, which go really well with the portfolios  - I will be putting more and more of this on soon, along with a few of my most popular lesson plans.
You can visit my store by clicking the tab at the top of the blog, look for the gadget on the right sidebar, or click this link:http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Mrs-Knights-Smartest-Artists


Thanks all.

700 followers! Week four accomplishments, too

Just saw that I reached 700 followers on my Blogger dashboard - thanks so much for keeping in touch with my Smartest Artists :). (Thanks to Bloglovin' readers too!) One of the most popular things on my blog has been my student portfolio posts, and after a few years of sharing them through email, I am happy to announce that I will have them available for you on Teachers Pay Teachers in the next few days! Stay tuned for that announcement/link.

I can't believe we are a full 4 weeks in - there is so much to do in those first few weeks and I feel like I should have more work to post, but honestly we are still putting touches on a lot of it. I do have some that I'm proud to show you though:

Kindergarteners continue the tradition of starting the year with Mo Willems' Pigeon, who found a friend or two in our drawings. Focus: combining simple shapes, illustration, filling the space

First grade family portraits - focus on filling the space, drawing portraits with overlapping, using materials correctly

Second graders will be revealing their colorful tissue paintings next week, based on Miro's abstract style. Focus- abstract art, drawing from our imaginations, using good craftsmanship

Third grade positive and negative dots based on The Dot. Focus - illustration, craftsmanship, positive/negative shapes

Fourth graders created observational drawings, first gesture figures then contour still life with shading.

Fourth and Fifth graders made color wheels, value scales, and notes on their portfolios to refer to - these and other things now available on Teachers Pay Teachers! http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Mrs-Knights-Smartest-Artists

Fifth graders made black and white observational drawings of rocks and shells to warm up, then moved on the contour line gem stones which we will fill with hues, tints, and shades, creating form.

More info on these soon to come, see you soon!

Treasure, on the cheap

I am a bargain shopper. I think of it as my version of sport.

I thought I'd share a few new things from my classroom that were free, upcycled, or super cheap.

The end of the year can be a real smorgasbord for art teachers, if you don't mind a little trash-can-diving. I found entire boxes of transparencies and overhead projector cardboard frames, since our overhead projectors have been collecting dust the past few years. I thought these would be great for some new display frames for my six hallway bulletin boards around the school, one for each grade level. I display examples of every project we do all year, so there's always a show going on. These have become new signage frames for my art displays - now I can just slide a new sheet in every time I change the board, listing our new objectives, vocab, artist of inspiration, etc. The little wooden glasses and circles were part of a massive clearance I found at Michaels, where I basically backed my car up and loaded as much as I could :). Pennies on the dollar, seriously - 80% off plus coupon - and Liquitex spray paint, too! A match made in heaven.

Here's more of my clearance loot - you can see more of these in action, like my Following Wall, in my earlier post: http://dolvinartknight.blogspot.com/2014/08/welcome-back-see-what-new.html

I made some Free Art Friday cases from old cassette boxes that were being thrown out as well. They are the perfect size to hold some cool handmade woven bracelets that my friend Claire made. We are having fun with our collaboration of sharing art in the world!

Kellen was one of the lucky Free Art Finders this week and the kids are excited that this will continue most Fridays this year - I am encouraging them to participate as sharers as well.

I have lots of art learning and production to share with you next week - here's a sneak peek of my 4th graders getting into their observational still life drawing! They are gonna be SO good.