Elementary Art Visit

Yesterday morning, I visited Mr. Wesseler's art room at Hawthorne Elementary in Elmhurst.  He uses a lot of technology in his classroom (like an iPad, which I'm getting soon!), so I wanted to see how he does it.

 

Here's his room.  Actually, it's only the main part!  There's a special room just for clay off of the main room.  Then, off to the left in this photo (above) is a doorway to an outdoor courtyard.  Yes, you heard me correctly.  An OUTDOOR COURTYARD.  For students to make art.  No, I couldn't believe it either, and I was way jealous.

So, besides a swanky courtyard and a clay room, he also has a whole separate store room that's definitely bigger than my storage closet (I feel so inferior now!), and another room for the kiln that had even more storage.  Ugh, storage envy!

 

I love these painted brick walls and windows.

I was able to watch a fifth grade and a fourth grade art class before having to travel back to Sandburg for my own classes.  Fifth grade was painting monochromatic compositions, and fourth grade was drawing still life arrangements in oil pastel.

Mr. Wesseler uses his iPad on the digital presenter to draw on it, but he also connects it to an external monitor that students gather around when reading digital books.  He uses his MacBook Pro for projecting art examples via iPhoto.

One of the most fun tips I saw in action was a repeated alarm set on his iPod to alert classes when there was 5 minutes left of class and it was time to clean up!  It was a cute little twinkle sound that students had been coached to listen for to begin cleanup before the next (back-to-back) elementary art class began.  Smart!