It's Art Day: Valentines for 400 of my closest friends! (Free Printable)

Here's the best way I can describe it... 

Every week, I invite 400 of my closest friends over to do our favorite things. Play, make, laugh, party and create BIG messes, BIG moments, and BIG memories. We clean up. Well, we try. We do our best. Before we can get cleaned up, it's time to do it all over again!!!! 

My 400 friends are BAAAAACK!!!!!

SO.... I created this valentine that I can print on various colored paper. I don't have the means of printing 400 color valentines or $$$ to buy them or the time to make them. I love my students and want to show them!  I've been handing these out all week. The amazing office assistants gave me  colored card stock. and of course in RAINBOW fashion! :-) 

I've posted a FREE PRINTABLE for you below! So if you do things last minute like me! DOWNLOAD AND PRINT PRINT PRINT! 

"You Are Loved" ... by Margaret McDonald on Scribd

HOPE YOU ARE HAVING A SWEET VALENTINES DAY! 

DON'T FORGET, YOU ARE LOVED!

It's Art Day! (Free Poster) "Follow Your Art"

"Follow Your Art"

Hi! I'm clearing out the cob webs of my blog and posting something real quick! I figured out how to add a PDF to my blog for you to download! You can download it if you scroll down! It's Free! I hope to upload more things soon! 
No plans to make money on my blog. That just ain't my thing!
So, please download it! Did I mention, its free??!!

So, since, I've been MIA that's me with the purple hair. I created the "Follow your Art" image above with my favorite editing software canva. I will be sharing more resources here on my blog. Please give me a follow via email! I'm also on Instagram and Facebook if you prefer that.  It would really make me happy to share more with you! 

Now, go ahead and download your free "Follow Your Art" poster Here or click below! 

Please share with others too! Thank you!

Follow Your Art.missBrightB... by Margaret McDonald on Scribd

It's Art Day!: Sticky Note Challenge #2 “I wish I Could Draw...”

Sticky Note Challenge #2 "I wish I could draw..."

Here it's October and I was trying to think of a new engaging prompt for the next "Sticky Note Challenge." You can check out our September Sticky Note Challenge here which was our first for the 2017-18 school year. 

 

It's still the beginning of the year so building those relationships with 450 plus kids is umm...well...quite a task!  So, I thought that maybe I would do a prompt that while benefiting them would also benefit me! So, this helped me get to know them a little better. They got to know each other by sharing and also told me something about themselves.  

 We had a lot of desire to draw animals. At the end of class, I asked who would like to share their sticky note. A great way to discover what student's hopes and dreams were as artists in my classroom. 

A few gave it a shot with a little mini drawing! 

I was able to promise that we would do self portraits!! Always!!

"ME"

"Real Expressions!"  "Cool Animals!" 

 These kiddos were very specific and knew exactly what kind of car they wanted to learn how to draw. This is great! 

POP CULTURE is alive and well y'all! We love EMOJIS! 

Check out another way I use sticky notes to engage my students here as they comment and ask me questions about what I'm wearing. 

Sticky Note Challenge #1: What is Art?

Autism & Art: Art Outside, River Rock Painting

Taking the art room outside is always a win with students! I have a giant king size sheet that we drag out when we do art outside. Every time it gets a little more "painty" or "smudgy." However, it absolutely gets a lot more magical! 

It's kind of like a quilt handed down through generations. There is an art project memory with each colorful splotch.

We have a garden at our school that is organized and run by 2 awesome parents. You can check out their blog here. Many posts are written by students. Follow them on twitter here @HESGardenGrow. They do amazing things with our students! 

 They purchased river rocks for me to work with and this is one of the projects I chose to do. I wanted to bring my adapted art students outside to with nature.

We used tempera paint in refillable dot markers to paint the river rocks. I purchased the dot markers here. We sat outside on our painty blanket to paint the rocks.

Dot Marker School Specialty Link Here

This took 2, 30 minute classes. We spent part of the 2nd class placing our rocks and exploring the garden. 

These painted rocks are "Legacy Rocks" They will remain in the garden to represent these students as artists and members of our community. 

I dipped each rock in Mod Podge to seal it since we used tempera which is washable. Since they are outside, they needed to be protected and they are doing great! We love them!

It's Art Day!: Sticky Note Challenge #1 “What is Art?”

Sticky Note Challenge #1 "What is Art?" 

Each month we have a sticky note challenge in our Art Room. For the month of September, the students responded to the question, “What is art?” We are trying to do more writing in art this year. Students can respond by writing or draw what they are thinking on the sticky note. 

They love sticky notes and so do I!! This was a great question to start off the school year and kick start our thinking about art/

They loved to watch the wall grow and read other’s responses. We also take time to share with each other our answers.

My students always blow me away with their thinking and creative conclusions and connections!

The large doors of these two cabinets turned out to be a great space to put up all the stickies.

Check back for the next STICKY NOTE CHALLENGE!
We do one every month!

Art Teacher Life: (Video) My #OurFCPS Spotlight

"Some people only dream of meeting
their favorite artists, I teach mine" 

On Thursday January 19, 2017, I tweeted the photo above. It was dismissal and I had grabbed my selfie stick and walked out to see students off! We were getting the next day off. January 20th would be the 2017 presidential inauguration.

I teach in Virginia, but we are just a few miles from Washington DC. If you live in a big city or near one, you know that living miles from any big city puts you in a mixing bowl of activity spanning far and wide. We call our area the "DMV" standing for "District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia."

You can find me here on twitter as BRIGHTBLUEHUE  The tweet got lots of love which I thought was just the coolest thing! Our awesome news liaison, Laura snagged it up and sent it in to the FCPS folks who gather potential pictures for news letters.

With our school's amazing news liaison!
Couldn't have braved it without ya Laura! 

Laura was contacted about the photo, asking to know a little more about the teacher pictured. I sent in the usual, where I went to college, years teaching, and few other things. They came back and said, "tell us more!" They had sent a list of questions this time. I was starting to get a little nervous. What is this for? I didn't ask questions. I just replied with meaningful answers trying my best to write like a rock star! However, it all kinda just came out as....."y'all, teaching art is pretty much the best thing ever!"

I didn't hear back for weeks and weeks. Finally, Laura said, "Margaret, they want to send a production crew here to film you!" Gulp..... My inner dialog was....'NO! NO! THAT'S NOT NECESSARY!!!'  Alas, it proved to be such a fun process. Terrifying, but a blast! Check out the video! 

A writer from the communications staff in FCPS wrote an article about me. It is amazingly well written. I'm so grateful that someone took the time to put it together. They really made me sound awesome! Amazing writing! You can read the short article here posted on March 3, 2017. 

In the article, I talk about how to keep up that joyful classroom at year 11 and how I kindle and rekindle my passion for teaching art!  I had this to say: 

 "I see how their art is ‘imperfect’ and how meaningful it is to view and enjoy.  This, in turn, taught me to let go of my inhibitions when doing my art. When my creative soul is full, I am ready to inspire them to know they are artists, too.” 

Margaret McDonald, Art Teacher

Check out that colorful back ground! The crew emailed ahead of time asking for an  "artistic" background to film against. So, I grabbed all the International Dot Day artwork from our September mural and threw the board together! It has stayed up  in this conference room all school year! 

I was asked, how I got the opportunity to be filmed. When I think about this experience and the little moments that lead up to the crew coming to film me, I realized that it all boiled down to something very basic - "passion"

On that Thursday afternoon at dismissal, I was genuinely having a good time with some of my "favorite artists." Most days, my job doesn't feel like a job. Don't get me wrong, it's tough! However, I can't imagine doing anything else. I think that is what showed up in this picture. Our smiles and that passion for art and for teaching!

I'm so grateful that I got this chance to be an advocate for art education. Sharing its importance in every single school for every single child!

I truly believe art education gives every child a voice! No exceptions! I'm am quoted in the spotlight article saying;

“When a child is given the opportunity for curiosity, exploration, imagination, risks, ideas, new materials, and challenges, that yearning and ability to create is awakened and expression is born.”