My Artist in Residence Adventure Begins!

Woah, so this snow this past week was a bummer! We had nothing but delays and two days off and an early dismissal which pushed my Artist in Residence program BEHIND! I am so glad the snow is gone and warm temperatures are on the rise! I hope that was the last of it.

This entire month of March I have an amazing artist who is working with my students and I to transform our Greenhouse into a rainforest environment. We are integrating science into art and vice versa big time! The kids are engaged, motivated, and excited and the integrating has been spectacular. 

We are using paper mache' techniques, form, sculpture, and recycled materials to create the creatures, plants, trees, leaves, mammals, amphibians, etc. We have each grade level focusing on a different layer of the Rainforest and thus collaborating and teaming up as a school to create a beautiful space. The Greenhouse is an amazing space but it is lacking color, life, and well educational inspiration. Of coarse, I love to color-fy my world, so my thought was why not the Greenhouse. 

This Thursday, my after school arts club I created last year called The Creative Minds will be making mosaic pottery to decorate the greenhouse as well. All of the mosaic pieces were donated from my staff, parents, families and students. It has been quite an experience to involve everyone in every aspect of this project and to have the students not only build and collaborate but the fact that they brought in their own materials AND sorted them. We have an organized clumping of materials around the room which gives the choice based art feel and allows them to explore, create, problem solve, and imagine. Everyday has been fun, exciting, inspirational and just amazing. The students are so engaged and we are integrating lessons and concepts hopefully into some classroom curriculums. Have any of you every gotten an Artist in Residence? If so, what project did you do, I would LOVE to hear and see some visuals of your wonderful experiences. 

It's been such fun and an interesting environment working in the Science Lab and Greenhouse space this  past week. Great views and for once my art room is clean everyday! hehe

We have been working in the science lab and greenhouse, so art came to visit there this month. No art class in the regular art room, we have transferred ourselves to the Greenhouse space!

Here, Kindergarten is making textured paper using a variety of green hues(Yay! For Tints and Shades!)

Greennnnnnnnn for March...Greeeennnnnnn for plants! GREEN FOR RAINFOREST PLANTS!

I love ART! Thank you for visiting and exploring with me today!