Medtronic Full Marathon

I did it!  26.2 miles.  Full Marathon with my sister on October 5th, 2014.  It was great summer of training and an even better race.  The crowd at the Twin Cities was amazing.   Cheering, music and food the entire 26.2 route.

Although, my sister and I did not run together most of the race, during the last mile and a half our paths crossed and we ended up finishing at the same time.  Truly the best moment of the entire race.  We ran this race for each other.  To find one another near the end and cross at the same time was a complete PRICELESS moment.

When's the next race?  With winter approaching, I only have plans to run for fun now.  I am thinking my first race for 2015 will take place in March.  Stay tuned!

ONLY ONE YOU

This week I set some time aside from our regular art projects to help celebrate our school theme ONLY ONE YOU.

Our theme is based off the book by Linda Kranz entitled Only One You.  After viewing the beautiful pages in her book, I thought it would be fun to have my students design their own special rock to remind them how unique they are.

I spent a week making little clay "cookies" to use as our rocks for painting.  The clay gave the students a flatter surface to draw and paint on vs. a real rock, which would have been just as neat, but would have been a lot of extra weight for me to bring into the school. Four hundered plus rocks.  For me,clay was the better choice. I'm a runner after all, not a weight lifter.  :)

Students viewed pictures from the book as well as other examples that I had prepared.  A pencil was used to plan the design, a sharpie marker outlined it and tempera was used to paint.  Tempera paint cakes are great for painting on the clay.  It dries super fast!  We used an acrylic sealer to make sure the paint would not rub off.  As a last touch, students were allowed to add a wiggly eye if they wanted one.

It was a pretty fun week!

Colorful, Wild, Wacky, Wonderful Wednesday

Today at school students were asked to dress in bright, colorful and wacky clothes to celebrate our school theme:  ONLY ONE YOU!

Seriously.  What art teacher doesn't love BRIGHT, COLORFUL and WACKY clothes? 

 What a great day!

 

Catching Z z z z's in the Art Room?

Sleeping in the art room on on a Monday morning?  NOPE!  Third graders are discussing perspective.  How we view the world.    Third grade students will be beginning an autumn tree drawing in worm's eye view perspective.  To understand the view point better, we laid on our tummies to see how different our world looked.  Many students were surprised at how many things they could no longer see (ceiling, top of tables) and some were surprised at all the details they never noticed before (all the speckles and scratches in Mrs. Allen's art room floor).

Worm's Eye View Perspective

Art Club: Dandelion Abstraction

Middle School Art Club, Dandelion Abstraction Example

Middle school students had their first art club meeting last night. Our project was called Dandelion Abstraction. Students used concentric circles to create their flower designs. We had a great turn out with roughly 20 students.

Art Club is for students in grades 5-8.  Our next art club meeting will be Thursday, October 2nd, 2014 at 3:30to 4:15 pm where we will be working on a Fall Leaf Print Card.