My favorite watercolor trick

If you're like me, you hate those little trays of watercolor cakes. They're the worst. Yes, I use them from time to time and every time I feel like it's just so wasteful. They're so easy to ruin.

I much prefer liquid water colors. But they require so much more prep. You have to squirt however much paint of each color in a palette for each kid.

But this week, I found a better way to do it. On Monday, I made the palettes, two wells of five colors because my first graders would be sharing them among two kids. They painted their clay pots and then returned the palettes to the counter. Instead of rinsing them out, I left them over night. They dried up for the most part. Some of the wells had more paint left than others so some had a little bit left in the morning.

I simply added water to each one and voilà, ready to use again. 

Tuesday's group used them, put them back, I added water, and so on an so forth. It's the best part of watercolor trays and liquid watercolors all rolled into one! 

For comparison, today I had to make a few new palettes today. On the right is all new paint and the left is paint from three days ago with water added. It really doesn't get overly watered down. 

What do you think? Would this work for you? Am I the last art teacher in the world to figure this out? 

My own art

As an art teacher, it seems like I never have time to make my own art. But lately, I've been trying to carve out some time specifically for making art. My new obsession: clay miniatures. I've posted some pictures below, not because I like showing off, but because I hate showing off. I'm trying to get myself more used to showing my art to people. Here we go!

Tiny Super Bowl Spread

Tiny Apple Pie

Tiny Pulled Pork, Cole Slaw and Beans

Tiny Burger and Fries

Tiny Italian Meal Prep

Tiny Chicken Nuggets and Mac and Cheese

Tiny Pot Roast

Tiny Salad

Tiny Sandwich and Chips with a Pickle

Tiny Blueberry Scone

Tiny Steak Dinner

Tiny Tart

Around my classroom

This year, I've been really putting more responsibility on my students to clean the room, do their work the right way, etc. I've keep a bunch of visual prompts and reminders around the room to hold them accountable. Here are a few of my favorites:

What do you think? Do you have any poster ideas I could add? What works for your kids?

Kelsey

I'm probably the worst blogger of all time

Sometimes I don't even know why I bother trying to blog. I think I just always feel like this time is going to be the time. This is going to be the time when it actually sticks. Oh well, here we go again. I'm going to try to actually post once or twice a week for the next month or so and see how it goes. If I don't like it after a month, I'll just give up. But maybe after a month I'll have gotten into a groove and I'll stick with it.

Nail Polish for Art Teachers

Let's face it; art teachers and nail polish don't go together. You paint your nails on Sunday afternoon, by lunchtime on Monday, they're covered in acrylic paint and clay and probably some glitter. So I gave up painting my nails. But then I discovered Julep. Julep nail polish is the most resilient nail polish I've ever used. I painted my guest room this summer and had latex paint all over my nails. It scraped right off and left my polish intact. I'm hoping it hold up as well to whatever my kiddos can throw at it. If you want to join Julep's Maven subcription box (and you should!) use my subscription link below.  Also, use the code FREESIZZLE for a free box, or look for another one if that one is expired.

        

If you try it, let me know how it holds up for you!

Kelsey

Bulletin Board!

We've been working on this board all week in art. All of my students, 1st through 4th, wrote and drew what art is to them. I love how it turned out. Yes, my room will probably be littered with no longer sticky post-it notes before too long but oh well. 

Oops. I forgot to blog for a whole year.

Well as usual, I'm not very good at blogging. But here we go again. I'll give it a shot. I'm at the same elementary school where I started out last year. My first year was super crazy and good and terrible and scary and fun and so many more things. I'll try to post about it soon. 

Also, I go back to start a new year tomorrow. I feel 100 times more prepared than I did last year. I actually feel like I might know what I'm doing. I know the people I work with, I know my kids, I know some lesson plans. I'm actually even feeling almost confident enough to possibly present at an art educators conference in November. We'll see. I have to decide and submit a proposal by Friday. 

Additionally, I got married this summer! My kids will now call me Mrs. Fortune. Although I'm pretty sure it's going to take months to convince my kids that had me last year to not call me by my maiden name. But at least my kinders won't know my previous name. 

After all of that, I'll leave you with a photo of a rubric that I made for this year (thanks to Pinterest obviously). 

Until next time!

Kelsey