We are 2 SISTERS on a MAGICALLY-DELICIOUS creative journey as we put our heart and SOUL into teaching students and inspiring other blog followers!
Karen Ray (Westfield School ~ Perry, Georgia)
Kim Daniel (Maclay School ~ Tallahassee, Florida)
Art Teachers - Art Education Blog
I have committed to reading 30 books this year. And, I do love a good goal. So, I am posting a little fun art lesson from last school year and a super good book that I highly recommend.
Have you heard of Brene Brown? If not, check out her website:
A friend suggested that I do a deep dive in reading the book Dare To Lead. So I did! Well, I listened to it as I drove to Memphis. Have you read it? It is so so so good, but jammed packed with lots of information. I found myself wanting to pull over and write things down.
2 things are for sure in my career...
1 I love to do art with kids
2 I love to GROW in my job
As an artist, I know I need to feed my mind, body and soul with good stuff! I think I am on the right track here.
Yeah, kids just love the freedom to paint. You can tell by these hearts.
When was the last time you just painted for the sake of painting?
Me, last week. And, get this - the title of my painting is
"Own Your Crazy" - fitting these days for me =)
Ok, I also made another goal as a recent empty nester. I plan to create 30 original pieces of art this year. Stay tuned for that post! It should be a good one. Thanks Brene for the information on leadership. You are amazing and I know this book will help to grow our Visual Arts Department...Appreciate it!
For this summer, I have made a promise to myself about being intentional with my teaching efforts, philosophy and my own professional development. You see I started teaching right out of college in 1991. Each year I see more and more students lacking in executive functional skills. This lesson was taught to see how many of my 8th graders would have issues with their cutting skills. I can say that I do see a significant difference in students behavior in my class from 1991 to 2019. The use of scissors seems to be a skill that is lacking. Crazy, right? Read on for more information.
Bottom line - I had mixed feelings about this book as a parent and a teacher. Check it out and see what you think about it.
The art lesson taught here was really about making the painted paper pieces with the left over paint at the end of the quarter. I decided to later have the art students cut out shapes to create feathers for their birds. Really simple, but a great amount of data was collected for me and how I wanted to use my time this summer to best effectively tackle my classroom and student needs for the following fall.
Stay tuned. I also set a goal of reading 30 books this year and I am at 14 as of now! If you know me, you know I stay in the road these days driving to Memphis to see daughter and driving to Georgia to check on my parents. So, I do lots of audio books - but I am loving it!
How are you growing this summer? Are you being intentional on your professional growth and development?
This post is long over due! But, hey - that is what summer is for - to get caught up, right? So, recently we have been tasked with...What does a Maclay Graduate look like? Well, this post sums it up to me. Someone that has good character is a team player and is still being productive and giving back to the communities that they are involved with where they are at in that particular stage of life. One of our biggest symbols that represents our school is the Oak Tree. As teachers (in this particular case a mom), we have the ability to see the Oak inside the Acorn. We see the massive amount of potential in our student's future. Kindess is the key here!
Here is the back story...copied from the Rhodes College Volleyball Alumni And Friends (Facebook Page) August 28, 2018 by Coach Kait Harris
Monday night we officially added Bridget Korn to the Lynx Volleyball Family! Bridget will join us this season and we will always be here for her and her family even after they return back home to Arizona. Bridget enjoyed hanging out with the team in the locker room after practice, shared some cupcakes, and got to start making her locker her own. She stayed in the locker room after the team left and wanted to read every letter each player wrote to her. The top word used to describe Bridget was "feisty"! Her unbelievable positive demeanor, playfulness, and strength shines. She is definitely a teammate who has a lot to offer the team and can teach all of us a thing or two about perseverance and maintaining an optimistic outlook! She will be in attendance at our matches this weekend, so don't be shy if you're in the gym to say Hi! You might even see her joining us on the sidelines this season!
Bridget loves unicorns! So, we plan on sporting some unicorn warmup shirts during pregame this season featuring her hashtag #BridgetStrong. You can follow her on instagram as well @BridgetStrong1 #unicornrain
Unicorn socks and hair ties are on the way for the entire team to sport on game day too! Even thought her favorite colors are purple and teal, she is still excited to sport the red and black with the LynxCats!
p.s. she's a pretty awesome artist and will be creating some artwork for the locker room for the team
A very special thank you to the Friends of Jaclyn organization for helping connect us! @FOJfoundation
Since #16 is an Alumni of Maclay, we thought it would be pretty cool to share a goody bag from our COTA Class with her to give to Bridget. #16 is 1969's daughter. Yes, we have blogged on Mary Frances before but this one hits home to me. My passion is my family and my art career. This post has both together. If we were to give Mary Frances some way-super-cool art she would be able to pass it along to her new friend Bridget. Bridget could then take some of the items back to St Jude and share there too. It is a process of paying it forward, right? I love doing this type of activity!
Are you asking, What is a COTA Class? See links below for more information:
We connected with Bridget's mom through Coach Kait. Who then sent us some of Bridget's art. We took those pieces of art and made into bookmarks, key chains, Christmas ornaments, etc...
We all believe in the power of positive thinking, right?
COTA Class created these positive items with magnets to be placed in random spots at St. Jude.
We collected donations from the Maclay Visual Arts Department to finish off our goody bag!
Bridget was s super addition to this team.
This unicorn has hung in the Middle School Art room for a couple of years. This was the one decisions that was unanimous by our students. We needed to send her to Memphis to meet Bridget - so we did! (Thanks, Gina...we did love having it in the MS Art Room, but it has a greater purpose now in Memphis)
COTA Class hard at work creating!
We do believe Bridget does love her some art!
Now isn't that a sight! Such a fabulous experience for all involved!
Talk about a fight song...you got this Bridget! I am so glad that this team was behind you in your stay in Memphis!
Meet Bridget's mom Jamie!
Follow Bridget and her progress on Instagram. She is doing amazing these days. @BridgetStrong1
Are you aware of all that St Jude does for families? If not, take a listen below.
Wow...just Wow!!!!
I leave you with one final thought -
Choose Kind Whenever You Can!
(This is the best way to teach our students about eMpathy)
WE are slow to blog this summer as we are re-charging for the next school year. Yes, both sisters are feeding their souls with ART in one for or another! We both have a "To-Do / Wish List" for the summer and we are knocking things out each day. This lesson was very successful each 9 weeks that I taught it. i hope you will enjoy the final projects!
We have blogged on these before, check them out on the links below:
