If you look closely, my nails match. |
It has
been a crazy month for me! Ever since I
started this endeavor a month ago, I have done nothing but write. I'm not complaining, I've just been
busy. In addition to being faithful to
my blog, I have written a letter of recommendation, an article for an artistic
publication, an article for my school news letter, and a grant. The grant was the big one. Since my brain is a little fried, I decided
to do a fun post full of color. I want
to show a few of the different bulletin boards I have completed during my nine
and a half years of teaching art. Feel
free to borrow steal any of the ideas. I
hope they give you inspiration! I know
all of us could use a little inspiration right now.
To
start this off on the right tone, I must make a crazy confession. Bulletin boards are my jam!!! As you can see,
I've already posted about one I made here. Right
now, the educational environment is pushing to let students have more control. We let students pick what they create (yup), we
let students come up with their own rubrics (yup, do that too), and we have
students assess their own progress (no matter how much they whine). I let them put their own grades in the grade
book until someone complained. (Just
kidding, but hmmmmm.....) So I hold
bulletin boards dear to my heart.
Whenever some well meaning teacher asks me, "Why don't you let the kids do this?" I smile that teachery fake smile that we all
have and make up some polite answer.
Really, what I want to do is turn my head and hiss at them, a big angry cat
hiss, a you-stepped-on-my-tail hiss. I
get control over one thing! Mind your
own business! Geesh.
Here is
a board I created when I first started teaching. It's super simple. In fact, I kind of forgot
about it until I was going through some old pictures last night. It's just student art work with a matching
border. I know I'm not alone in
studying Jim Dine in January/February. I've
seen the pictures from the internet. We
all do it! Jim Dine hearts are always fun for Valentine's day. Not as much fun as 75% off discount
Valentine's day candy the day after the holiday, but close!
This
was another Valentine's board I did. My
bulletin boards are a lot cooler with a few more years of teaching under my
belt. My inspiration for this board can be found
here. I decided to do a Van Gogh themed
box of chocolates because I found a ton of those postcard books featuring Vincent
in my classroom. The box and all of the
chocolates were 3D. It was a huge pain. Literally,
I put it together with a glue gun. I ended up having a student work on it after I
finished about three of them. That will
teach them to rush through their projects.
I think
everyone has seen the little complementary color poster that's been floating
around on Pinterest. I loved it, and I
thought it would make a great bulletin board.
This is my interpretation of that poster. When I was taking it down, a bunch of 7th
grade girls scavenged the little Pac-Man color guys out of the trash. As they were excitedly chatting about how
cute they were and how they were going to hang them up in their bedroom, I was
fuming. WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT!!! I still regret not pulling my teacher card
and forcing them to give them back. They
would look cuter in the art room.
This is
a board I created for Music in our schools month, YAM, and any other
"let's celebrate the arts" celebration. I got the idea for the bubble letters in the
FB group for Art teachers. Students wrote in the letters little messages about what
they loved most about music or art. I
wasn't totally in love with the finished product. It came out dull, very white. If I had to do it over, I would have
splattered some paint drips on top of the sheet music. The one thing I remember about this board is only
reason I included Music in it was because I wanted to line the background with
sheet music. Sorry music class.
Here is
a bulletin board I pretty much copied directly off the internet. The original was found here. Now, as you all know from my last blog post,
I love art history. When I saw this
board, I absolutely had to create it. I
changed two of the five art history snowmen to my favorites--Klimt and Van Gogh. I also added paintings to my board to make it
easier to identify the artists. I ended up making this board interactive and having
students match the number of the snowman to the name of the artist. They put their answers in an envelope next to
the board. Right before Winter break, I drew a winner
and gave them a box of color pencils. Also,
side note, I learned my lesson from the complementary board and did not throw
these guys out. They hang in my
classroom to this day.
More ART HISTORY!!! |
This
next board is something I created all on my own. In fairness, I have to give credit to Katie Morris, the person who created the snowman board. After it was time to change my snowmen out, I
wanted to come up with another art history board. I settled on this theme: artist who painted
the person they loved. I must have a thing for Valentine's day. This is my third bulletin board with that
holiday theme.
Ugly, stupid, colorful time vampire. |
Now,
I've been showing you a lot of boards that were inspired by stuff I found on
the internet. Most of the time, these
have turned out pretty good. Well, now
I'm going to show you one of my failures.
I saw this board here, and I thought it was awesome. Theirs was, but mine turned out like
crap. I didn't put the paint chips down
in the correct order. Or it looks better in pictures than it does in real life. Or something. The result was a
sloppy looking rainbow board. If I was
going to do this over, I would plan out the placement of my paint chips with
more care. Or I just wouldn't do it
again. This took a stupid amount of time
(hours!) for a crappy result.
That middle guy got a 100 on his test. Good for you, buddy! |
Although
I didn't find this inspiration on the internet, I didn't come up with this idea
on my own. This premise came from a
poster that hangs in the Spanish teacher's classroom in my school. Of course it doesn't say art, it says
Spanish, but I loved it and thought it would be perfect for art advocacy. It came out great! Also, I looked for an image of this poster, but couldn't find one on Pinterest or Google images. But I also didn't look very hard.
If
you've read to the end of this post, congratulations! You've made it to my hidden message. Yes, I wanted to show you bulletin boards,
but this post had a deeper significance.
This week, a fellow blogger, Marcia Beckett, posted this article on a FB art teacher's
blogging group. I was 100% totally in
love with the post. I recommend reading
it for yourself, but if you're tired from reading my post, here's the gist of
it: If you take ideas from someone, give credit! As the article says, "Spread credit
around like confetti." Which is a
statement I totally love, and will find ways to sneak it into everyday
conversation.
Now I'm
sure there are people out there who will complain about this post or say I'm a
crappy, Pinterest loving, BAD teacher.
You know what I say to that?
Whatever! We've all needed some
inspiration from time to time. I've
created dozens of bulletin boards in my career, and several of them have been
ideas taken directly out of my head. But
that doesn't make me special, and if I searched "my" ideas on the
internet, I'm sure a lot of them would pop up.
I picked these examples because I
wanted to make a point. We should all
steal like an artist (awesome book!) and throw credit around like confetti (awesome idea!).
Nothing
you do will ever be original. EVER. And that's ok. No one art teacher can constantly be creative
and full of new ideas. And even if you
are a fountain of inspiration, you're probably not the first person to come up
with that thought. We are here to help
each other out and to share. And let's be honest, if you really want to keep that magical bulletin board idea to yourself,
why are you even posting on the Internet?
So take ideas and mix them up.
Add your own spin. Maybe, like my
snowman bulletin board idea that I stole, it will turn into an entirely new
idea, like my "artists in love" bulletin board.
The bottom line is, while you are working someone's ideas, please remember
to give credit. It's the best thing you
can give.
Well, except
for cheap chocolates on February 15th. That's probably the best thing you can
give.