Attention to Legislation

KAEA is not a political group by nature, but we want to make sure you area aware of something that could affect a large number of our members. Legislation including Kansas HB2023 could cause severe problems for public sector unions and teachers organizations. You can read a summary here: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2013/jan/24/kansas-chamber-backed-opposed-teachers-organizatio/

If you wish to take action...

You can sign the petition here: http://signon.org/sign/end-the-war-on-kansas.fb23?source=s.icn.fb&r_by=6902887
You can find your legislator here to call or email: http://www.kslegislature.org/li_2012/b2011_12/members/

YAM Displays

Bulletin board by Katie Morris, Pauline South Intermediate School

As you plan and work on wonderful Youth Art Month displays, bulletin boards, and events, remember your camera! You can submit photos to share with other KAEA members. Your photo could be featured on the KAEA blog and on our Facebook page, maybe even as our new cover photo! Photos can be submitted at www.Facebook.com/KansasAEA or by email to catharine.morris@yahoo.com. You can also email your photos to smontgomery@cheney268.com with your YAM Documentation Report Form to be part of the KAEA Youth Art Month scrapbook. (Access the form at http://kaea.com/yam.html)

Bulletin board by Katie Morris, Pauline Central Primary School

2013 Youth Art Month Celebration

It's that time of the year again---time to be thinking about participating in the

  2013 Youth Art Month Celebration 

to be held

in Topeka 

on

Saturday, March 2nd.

  The YAM booklet and forms have been updated and are ready for you online at http://kaea.com/yam.html

I have tweaked the entry form we need for display so that we can utilize our display space better.  You will need to fill out pages 14 through 16 in the YAM booklet.  The rest is just general information and things you can use for YAM.  

It might take a little while to load on to your computer as it is a large, but helpful document.  

We are again sponsored by "Sargent Art" and they are generously offering a grand prize trip to New York City as well as art supplies to the other place winners.  Remember that you do have to be an active member of KAEA in order participate in the YAM Art Competition.  However, every single art teacher in the state is invited and encouraged to submit ONE piece of student art to represent your school during the YAM celebration.

Sincerely,

Shawny Montgomery

KAEA YAM Chair

Vincent YAM-Gogh

Vincent YAM-Gogh will once again be attendance assisting in handing out the awards and will be available for photo opportunities.

Other Recognitions The YAM flag awards donated by Molly Hawkins Wholesale will be awarded during the celebration. The Harry Hart Memorial Senior Scholarships will also be awarded during the celebration.

National Education Association Convention YAM Participation We are planning on having a virtual gallery and a display representing KANSAS at the National convention in Fort Worth in March. If you would like to participate, you can send ONE digital photograph of a student's art (include your name, school name, and the student's name and grade) to  Shawny Montgomery at  smontgomery@cheney268.com  by January 30th.

YAM  opportunity through the Council for Art Education

This year the Council for Art Education is encouraging art teachers all across the country to participate in a  national campaign for the first time ever.  With ties to Teas and the NAEA Convention being held in Ft. Worth, we are pursuing country music superstars Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert.  We are in hopes that they will agree to be our Honorary National Chairpersons and at the very least they will endorse Youth Art Month. If you are interested in participating in this event or would just like to find out more information, go to the YAM page on the KAEA website at http://kaea.com/yam.html

Common Core and the Visual Arts- South Central Region Seminar

Join us to learn more about Common Core and the new State Standards as well as fellowship with other Art teachers!

Guest Speaker:  Joyce Huser – Fine Arts Education Consultant from Kansas State Department of Education

Common Core and the Arts:   Common Core Strategies we are using today and new approaches being developed.

The New National Visual Arts Standards:  What will they look like and the new directions they will take.

Date: February 15, 2013, Join us for the Morning, Afternoon or All Day

Time:  9:00am to 3:30 pm.  Lunch from 11:00am to Noon

Location:  Andover Central Middle School 903 East Central, Andover

 Kansas.  Questions?  Contact Ginger Steck 218-4710 (s) or 209-1045 (c)

Cost:  Free!  Bring a Snack to Share if You Would Like.

What to Bring:  Favorite Lesson Examples and Student Handouts if you Have Them.  Common Core Classroom Lesson Examples. Your Camera!

Schedule for the Day:

8:30 am Gather and have a Continental Breakfast While Having a Chance to Get Acquainted or Catch Up.

9:00 am Southwest Native American Pueblo Pottery – Hands On and Informational. 

10:00 am – 11:00 am Painting Techniques – New Ideas. Lesson Swap. 3-D Projects in the K-12 Art Classroom. New Evaluation Tools and Requirements from the State.

11:00 am – 12:00 pm Lunch – Lots of Great Restaurants in the Andover Area.

12:00 pm – 12:30 pm Gather and Share Recent Projects and Examples. 

12:30 pm– 2:00 pm Guest Speaker: Joyce Huser Fine Arts Education Consultant KSDE, Speaks About Common Core Approaches and the New National Visual Arts Standards to be Released Very Soon. Question and Answer Time.

2:00 pm– 3:30 pm Share and Create Common Core Lessons that have been Successful and Additional Strategies that can be Added or  Expanded. Hands on Classroom Examples.

Drawing from Observation Using Dots

The following article was written by Michaeline Kohler, a KAEA Professional Development Grant Recipient. KAEA offers up to 5 Professional Development Grants to members each year, due on November 20th. Read more at http://kaea.com/grants.html, you could be our next recipient!

Drawing from Observation Using Dots

Michaeline Kohler

Cheney Middle School

Cheney, Kansas

This past summer I had the opportunity to attend a 3-day workshop in Sisters, Oregon with Annie Painter.  Annie’s web site, http://www.anniepainter.com/, had been a source of inspiration for me. Her strong work in color and design was just what I needed to give my students an extra boost.  I learned and have tried a lot of her techniques in my classroom, but for this article I am going to focus on using dots to draw and using paint chips for color.

 My 6^th graders were intrigued when I told them their next art day would be making a dot to dot picture.  Several of them said they loved dot to dot.  For fun, I searched the internet and found a shell dot to dot that I handed them as they walked in the door.  When completed, I told them that was their clue for their assignment.  On the tables, I also had displays of beautiful shells that I borrowed from the science department. 

I demonstrated the observational drawing of looking at the object and placing a dot where a distinctive part of the shell was.  This encourages the students to look closely and to draw what is really there, not just what they think a shell looks like. They connected their dots and then drew lines for the inside shapes and textures. Most agreed the drawing was easier than they thought and the drawing more realistic.

"Paint Chip" Palette

One of Ms. Painter’s techniques for painting is to make “paint chips” using tempera paint.  I had students who finished an assignment early paint 12X18 sheets of drawing paper with tempera paint.  The paint is layered on thickly and one color per sheet.  We laid them aside to dry overnight.  After cutting the sheets into 3X4” rectangles, the colors were separated into warm and cool piles. Students were allowed to choose 3 cool and 1 warm color for an accent or vice versa. Students stapled their color choices on an inexpensive paper plate.

Now the fun begins! The students had a good drawing and paint chips.  Using just clear water and brushes, they rubbed the color off the paint chips and painted their shells.  The results were very transparent and resembled watercolor.  If a student was not finished at the end of the class period, they wrote their name on the paper plate palette and the paint was rewetted the next day. The cleanup was so easy; I know this technique would be great for my Kindergarten classes also.

We had a lesson in drawing from observation, warm and cool colors and techniques of painting in a short time with great results. I did have my students cut out their shells and matt or mount them on colored construction paper.  The display was bright and cheerful in the hall. Sometimes just seeing or hearing about a different idea can be refreshing for us and for our students.

Get Connected! Social Media for Art Educators

Our webmaster presented a workshop at the KAEA Fall Professional Development Conference about using Social Media to network with Art Educators. By reading this blog, you are already engaging with KAEA through Social Media. Here are some basics to help you continue on your Social Media journey. You can view and download the PowerPoint of the presentation here.

Social Media includes services like Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and more.
Did you know that KAEA is on Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, and Pinterest?

Professionalism is key-

• Consider anything you post public. If you wouldn't say it to your principal or a parent, don't post it online.
• Follow etiquette- if you don't know it, look it up!
• If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all!
• Remember that it's about sharing, not just self-promotion.

Blogging- from the term "weblog", started as journaling and now you can find blogs on virtually any topic. Servers like Blogger or Wordpress allow you to write your own blog for free and follow blogs you are interested in.

Reasons to blog- 

• Visual and verbal reflection
• Share ideas and resources
• Connect with other professionals
• "Meet" people from all over the US as well as other countries
• Get answers and help solve problems

"Blogosphere" Etiquette

• Cite your sources and inspiration and link to it using a Permalink
• Comment to let people know you are there
• Share differences of opinion in a respectful way to add to the conversation. Don't attack. Remember there's a real person behind the blog.
• Don't link to your blog unless extremely relevant- this could be seen as spamming.
• Respond to comments from your readers.

Starting your own blog

• Choose a host like Blogger or Wordpress
• Consider your goal and target audience- other professionals, parents, students?
• Consider privacy and permissions- you can approve and moderate comments on your blog.
• Visuals add interest. Use your own visuals whenever possible, Illustrate process and product, Don't use others' visuals without permission.
• Consider adding a watermark or copyright symbol to your blog.

Pinterest- Pin + Interest. Allows you to "pin" images with saved link like a visual bookmark.

• Lets you access your pins and boards from anywhere with an internet connection.
• Not just for recipes and cleaning tips- Collaborate with group pin boards, pin reference images for lessons and research, share ideas and sources.
• Great tool for blogging- lets you track your inspiration sources.
• Share your links but don't pin exclusively for self-promotion.

Twitter- post and view short messages called "tweets", limit of 140 characters.

• Not just for celebrities, increasingly used in education.
• "Follow" accounts- Art Educators, museums, organizations, magazines, companies, etc.
• Connect with others, collaborate, share blog posts, pass on links and resources
• RT- Retweets pass along tweets written by others to your followers.
• "@" in front of texts identifies it as an account. Typing "@" tags the account in your post.
• "#" is called a hashtag. Can be a searchable term like #ArtEd, #Elem, #KAEA2012, or something just for fun like #YouMightBeAnArtTeacher

Facebook- "friend" individuals and "like" pages. Besides connecting with family and friends...

• Like organizations
• Participate in discussions
• Share resources- links, images, ideas

Ning- another social network used in education. NAEA has official Ning

The SmARTteacher- Art Education community

• Participate in discussions
• Create, share, and "keep" resources
• Monthly contests- upload resources, lesson plans, etc. and be eligible to win prizes including supplies

Art and Common Core Standards

 by Casi Hamilton

As I’m sure it did to many of you, the beginning of the school year came crashing down on me in a wave of professional development days and meetings. I find the beginning of the school year to be a conundrum of emotions. Feelings of excitement over seeing the kids and getting started on new projects battle with waves of despair as, during the first three or four of my contract days, my eyes glaze over while we discuss test scores and a host of acronyms that stand for all sorts of things that I don’t want to get into.

However, I was shocked and surprised when this year, I was lead into a small group meeting with my fellow elective and projects-based course teachers by our district instructional coach to discuss OUR new common core state standards.

What’s this? I thought to myself. Since when does administration care about non-tested subjects meeting their standards?

Since Kansas adopted the Common Core State Standards, that’s when.

For those of you who may not yet know, or understand Common Core Standards, They officially address standards for English Language Arts (ELA) and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects (basically ALL subjects).

During this meeting, which is one that I am assuming many of my fellow Junior High and High School art educators attended at their districts, we were coached in ways to tackle this newly recognized responsibility .  We were reminded that reading and writing is a requirement in all classes, and were informed that, through the CCSS, we now face more accountability for our student’s success in those areas.

Knowing that this was a bit overwhelming for some, our academic coach eased our minds by pointing out that for the most part, we already do the things required by the new Common Core State Standards. The hardest part for us as projects-based course teachers would be identifying how we incorporate them, and then documenting that process.  We were walked through curriculum mapping and shown multiple online resources for understanding and documenting the Common Core in our classes.  Then, we were all assigned the task of meeting these rigorous demands. We should each be addressing the CCSS in our classes, and documenting our work throughout each nine weeks.

To many, this was quite the challenge. After a brief moment of panic at the beginning of the meeting when I was handed stacks of official looking papers, I began to sort through the information being presented to me and realized that I really do address most, if not all, of the CCSS for ELA and Literacy in my classes throughout the year. I began to mentally catalog the ways that we use reading and writing in art and prepare myself for the paperwork that lay ahead.

When I returned to my classroom, I looked through my first nine weeks lesson plans intending to fill in the boxes on our new curriculum maps while the information was fresh in my mind. As I leafed through my resources, I came across my teacher edition of the September/October issue of Scholastic Art. I sprang for a classroom subscription last spring, something I had been debating about doing for the last few years. As I looked through the pages, I was thrilled by all of the connections the articles and assignments made to the Common Core. I was even more excited when I pulled out the inserted Teacher’s Guide and saw that Scholastic Art had mapped out the National Art Education Standards and the Common Core Standards together! They had basically filled out my curriculum map for me.

Needless to say, I was, and am still excited to try out Scholastic Art in my High School and Middle School art classes this year. I’ve discussed the magazine with our Instructional Coach, and she agrees it will help me take steps in the right direction toward meeting our district’s expectations for addressing the Common Core State Standards in Art during the 2012/2013 school year. I have yet to try it out with my students, but I feel like it will be engaging and effective. 

Watch for future reports in the newsletter on  keeping you up do date on our successes and struggles as I begin to implement the CCSS in 7-12 Art curriculum by using Scholastic Art.