Controlling Consumption - An Earth Day Art Moment

One of the greatest banes of being an art teacher is waste. Students are constantly inventing new ways to waste supplies. They fail to understand that while the hot glue stick they just dropped on the floor and kicked out the door only cost a penny, there are 200 students doing the same thing every day if the teacher isn't watching carefully. Today's head slapper was a group who wanted more flour in their paste bucket. When I looked in the bucket it only had water in it! I had put fresh flour into every paste bucket just 10 minutes ago! They had put the paste bucket on a shelf behind them and gotten a new bucket because the paste smelled funny. No sooner than I had corrected that issue but I caught one of them digging into my rapidly dwindling supply of flour because, according to him, the paste was too watery. Students will use facial tissues as paint rags or paper towels, use hand sanitizer as hand cleaner, and cut a 2" square from the center of a piece of cardboard, wad up the remainder and throw it in the trash. The minute something goes from new to used, they despise it. It has become unclean.
My secret weapon is pre-packaging materials. Plastic storage bags, portion cups with lids, old plastic medicine bottles, small dispensing bottles from my friendly internet supplier are invaluable. I measure and pre-cut yarn and yarn, count out and package beads. Paint is dispensed in 4 ounce and 2 ounce plastic bottles (Midwest Bottles is a great source). Glitter is packaged in old plastic medicine bottles. Plaster, alginate and gesso are distributed in portion cups (check your local restaurant supply store). Acrylic gems, sequins, foamies, buttons, poms and other small embellishments are portioned into cups and stored in 6 section cupcake pans from Dollar Tree.
The ultimate in recycling are yard sales. I pick up all manner of equipment and materials at yard sales. I recently got four brand-new sets of Prismacolor colored pencils that retail for $20 for only $4 each. Granted the money comes out of my pocket rather than the school budget but my parsimonious soul has a hard time choosing $80 of colored pencils over 250 lbs of clay for the same price. Of course I've also bought clay at yard sales.

Art by the Numbers

Woke up at 3AM with a brillant idea and was trying so hard to work things out in my mind that I couldn't get back to sleep. The addition to my classroom schedule is the 5 Minute Critic. In the last 10 minutes of class, I pass out 3x5 index cards. Each student fills out a card with his/her name, title of his/her work, the date and the name of his/her chosen critic. The student gives the card to the critic and the critic has 3 minutes to examine the work and question the artist. At the end of the time, the critic makes 2 comments on the back of the card: one thing that the artist has done well and one thing the artist can improve and then signs the card and returns it to the artist. The artist has the opportunity to read the comments before turning the card in on their way out of class. Students get the chance to talk about work in progress and get feedback and I get an exit slip.

Papier Mache Zoo Installation

Papier Mache Zoo is installed today. While some of the groups have been very sucessful, others have struggled. THey have great difficulty visualizing their completed work and focusing on work rather than socializing. The Little Red Hen Syndrome was very evident in most groups. If the Red Hen was absent for a day, nothing got done. In other groups there was a lack of leadership and, therefore, a lack of focus.