That Little Art Teacher: July 2013

I love the art work of George Rodrigue. Especially his Blue Dog. I have taught this Blue Dog lesson every year. It is always a huge success with students.

This year I decided to make Blue Dog my theme.

Blue letters for my "I Can" standards

Purple dog looking over our art word wall.

Orange dog reminding students to clean their paint brushes.

Red dog showing students who the helpers are for the day.

Yellow dog reminding students to write their name, table, and code.

If you're wondering why I have so many different color "Blue Dogs" then you should read this:

Here are some other sites around the room.

I love our "closets" but was tired of seeing the "stuff". I like the effect of the sheer fabric. Curtains $5 at Big Lots held up with simple $5 tension rods.

My buckets got pretty rusty. I love these baskets also from Big Lots. 2 for $1.20

3, 2, 1 whole class points rewards.

For the past four years I have stuck with my tried and true behavior board, "The card pull system". It has been fool proof, but the preparation for it was tedious and tiresome. I had to buy new pockets and index cards. Write the teachers' names and grades. Then, I had to take away from class time to have all students 1st - 4th write their names on the cards. After that, I would have to write all the Kindergarteners' names on theirs. Not to mention stapling and lining up each pocket. That board always took an hour out of my life and money to prepare.

It was a wonderful management tool, but sometimes it took the kids FOREVER to find their card in the teacher's pocket. "I can't find it", they would lie or seriously couldn't. Then, sometimes they would pull someone else's card. At the end of the day when I wrote down who had sat out that day (and then therefor miss art party time) I would sneer. I guess they thought I'd forget who the culprit was.

Out with the old and in with the new!

When I was in middle school, a teacher of mine had us write our name on the board when we misbehaved. That was the warning. Next, she would add a check mark. You might even get up to three checks then you had a detention.

So I ran with a version of that. I made dry erase papers buy putting a thin piece of cardboard and a white piece of paper in a page protector. I then taped colored duct tape around the sides and tacked them to my board. I also placed a dry-erase marker in a cup close by.

The idea:

On 1st offense: write name on green warning board

2nd: write name on yellow 5 minute no art board

3rd: write name on red 10 minute no art board with an added parent communication note home

(they take a note out of the red pocket and hand it to me to write their name on it and the infraction. They must have it signed and brought back the next day or their teacher and myself will decide the next form of punishment)

The parent and office notes are kept handy!

4th: the office. Students pull the office note for me to fill out and I send them with a buddy to the office. The buddy is to make sure the student gets there and doesn't hide out in the bathroom. (it's happened before)

I am still sticking to my, "If you get anytime no art then you have to serve the time again at the art party." I believe that is what really drives my management because it hits them twice.

This might sound bad, but I can't wait to try it out.