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Art Room Tour

8/11/2014

Finally! Here is a peek at my new room. See the 'BEFORE' pictures HERE.

Open house was a huge success. Many of the 6th graders were like WOW, it is so clean in here! It is like a completely different room. They were blown away.

I also had several parents offer to volunteer....I've haven't had a lot of that before, but it is very exciting to have those eager parents who are so supportive right out of the gate!!

The black and white mural in the corner was already in the room when I moved in, so I am lucky to have it. A student who helped paint it stopped by with her brother and I got meet her and she wrote her name below it. Cool moment!

The tables were donated by a great friend, champion, and mentor Josie Mai. The shape and dimensions of the tables allowed me to really rearrange things in the space.

Most of the decor was given to me by students, like this awesome metal plaque above. LOVE THIS!!

Or found at garage sales and flea markets. The mona lisa curtain was found at a garage sale several years ago for $15!!

You might want to refer to the BEFORE photo here to see the transformation in this corner. Love how the beaded curtain is reflected in one of the mirrors. I've collected those mirrors at flea markets over the years.

I was very lucky to have the chance to get the district wood shop crew into the room over the summer to build the bookcase and the cabinets.

Love those Crystal 'Why We Teach Art' display cards. Perfect for finishing off a board!

If you are looking for FREE---COOL--COLOR--printable--CLASSROOM--signs, LOOK HERE.

To label my tables by color, I spray painted old paint cans, and then dripped paint down the sides. I used glow-in the dark paint, glitter paint, whatever. They are lightweight and look really cool hanging from the ceiling!

I'm excited for the year to start!

If you are ever at the middle school, stop by and visit!!

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Art Room Transformation (BEFORE)

8/9/2014

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I've had a great run as a K-4 art teacher, but this year, I'm moving up to our 5th and 6th grade middle school position. I'm excited that all of my students will be able to read....I think it will be a game changer for expectations and learning, since I spent most of my days breaking down basic procedures, this will be a whole new way of experiencing teaching and education.

Part of the move means setting up the new space to make it conducive to learning. I've used the new classroom before, during summer school, and I'm sure I imagined what I would change to make the room better....so I finally had the opportunity to get in there this summer. Luckily, the timing was right and I was able to do several amazing things to improve the room.

In this post, I will show you the BEFORE photos of the room. These were taken during summer school. For the record, the class in the pictures was exceptionally small and did a good job of staying on task so I used them as my 'models'. Future classes in my new job will be MUCH bigger, up to 32 or 33 at times.

I had a lot of time to visualize the room before my furniture/books/supplies were moved on July 7th. I knew that some new tables were to be donated to replace the ones in the photos above, so I could reconfigure the layout a bit. I also knew I was bringing in my own, smaller teacher-desk and having some custom cabinets installed by the district.

So I used a really cool program called Floor Planner to map out the room. It was fun to create this 3-d map of the room before moving everything...it also helped me realize that I have more stuff (since I am moving 2 classrooms worth of stuff), than I needed for this room. It gives you a 2-d representation of the space, as well as a 3-d view to help with positioning and everything.

This classroom also has a storage closet, I'm really excited to have a place to put all the stuff that doesn't need to be visible, but needs to be available. The decor was pretty sparse...one optical illusion mural in the corner, a couple of posters, but not much else.

A lot of elementary teachers I have worked with, feel like every surface should be covered with something. Every visible wall space should be useable in some way, covered with posters, charts, classroom management materials, inspirational quotes. I'm working with a lot of white walls, what do you think? Is an elementary classroom with lots of stuff on the walls 'too busy' or is it necessary? Do you think too much stuff can be a distraction or do you think it helps with the creative process? Is it inspirational or a distraction?

I'd love to hear your thoughts!!
I'll post the AFTER pictures soon!!

Or you could stop by during open house Monday 5:30-7:00 and see for yourself. We will have a collaborative mural going, so you can even do a little painting while you are there.

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Art Room Tour

Art Room Transformation (BEFORE)

Mrs. Mitchell

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