The Classroom Blog

Howdy folks!  Are we ready for Spring yet?  If you're on the East Coast like I am, I'll bet you have been ready since January.  This time of year is always a time when I feel energized enough to do a little spring cleaning around my classroom as well as on my classroom blog: https://murchartroom.wordpress.com.

The blog was created a few years ago as a tool to communicate with the school community about the happenings in "The Art Room" and so far - I think it's been pretty successful.

After having looked about many other fantastic blogs created by art teachers and elementary school teachers alike, I decided to take various qualities I enjoyed and consolidated into one blog.

You've got your home page - where I usually make quick announcements and direct viewers where to go.  It also is where I like to post my philosophy on arts education. A picture here and a picture there and it's done.  Pretty simple I know, but I'm saving the good stuff for the pages that are organized by grade level.  

On grade level pages I give a quick run down of what students are learning about and exploring and provide pictures of students in action.  By organizing pages by grade level, my hope is that it provides parents easy access to finding what their kiddo is up to rather than having to scroll on one endless blog page.  There's a resource page with a list of great books, exploration and activity workbooks, and websites that have been a hit with my students.  And lastly, there's an "About the Teacher" page.  I'm not big on shining my own light on me, but I do think it's important that parents can put a face with a name and know what my background in art is.

So with that, I invite you to check out my page and leave a comment or suggestion.  I am always looking for new ways to improve.  If you have a blog you think is worthwhile - please send that my way too!

All the best!

No Sink? No Problem!

When I first became an art teacher, my room was in a small portable located next to some basketball courts (Three cheers for basketballs hitting my classroom walls all afternoon! Yippee!)  The upside was that it had tiled floors, which of course, was great for clean up of spills and the like.  The downside is that it had no sinks.  Throughout the year I tried a variety of different things and finally came to a routine that worked:

1. Disinfectant Wipes & Baby Wipes:  Don't be afraid to make a supply list that is sent out to parents with a list of things you need to get the year started right.  When you make a list of "must-haves" make sure wipes are on there.  I make every single student bring in one container of disinfectant wipes and one container of baby wipes.  It's a lot to store, but they go quickly if you're wiping up after each session and makes it a breeze to have students help clean up.  The bonus for you is that your room gets sanitized at the end of each class keeping you and the kiddos happy and healthy AND cleaning dirty hands is a breeze - just send each kid out the door with a baby wipe for their hands and have them deposit it in the next trash can they see.

2. Heavy Duty Construction Buckets:  Create a water station! These are pretty cheap and can be found at your local hardware store. Purchase five or more buckets if you can. Locate your closest water tap that can fit a bucket and recruit 4 big kids (usually fifth graders) to dump and refill the water buckets for you at the end of each day so that it's ready to go in the morning.  Two buckets should be filled with clean water and plastic pitcher for pouring into cups, one with clean water and soap for a quick rinse, and one or two buckets for the "slop" buckets, where you dump old water from the day's lessons.  Training the kiddos is the most important aspect of this process.  Make sure you are explicit in expectations and model to them how and what should be done.  Have them practice supervised a few times and you are ready to go.  If you can find a heavy-duty door mat (another cheap find at the hardware store) place it under the buckets to capture the water drips.  Placing the "water station" close to the exit is a good idea too - that way splashing is at a minimum when taking away and bringing back the buckets.

3. Portable Sinks: I know these guys are expensive, but if you can get your principal on board or the PTA to sponsor you - they are another great way to go.  Portable sinks can be purchased on line and delivered already put together.  They just need to be emptied and filled with water each day.  If you shop around for one or two - make sure you get the largest gallon size you can.  Some sinks only hold 5 gallons of water which can go in a snap.  Try to find 10 gallon tanks or more if you can afford it.  When I had portable sinks, I made sure students knew that it was for project water supply only.  Hand washing was still done using baby wipes.  To empty and refill the tanks, our janitor (aka - my best bud) would come by each afternoon to help.  Can't get the janitor?  Ask a parent or two if they could take a few days a week to help.  Can't get money to purchase the sinks?  Think about Donors Choose at donorschoose.org or about contacting a portable sink maker to see if they can donate one.  I've also found them on Craigslist so you do have options so long as you're willing to be creative about pick up.