Valentine TPT Sale

That's right- You heard it here! Treachers pay TEachers is having a Valentines Day Sale! So when you are tired from those class parties and cant make to Ash Wednesday service, come go shopping with us! Everything in my store will be 20% off and Tpt takes an additional 5% off your entire purchase.
Click on this link to get to my store:
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Gena-Mcwilliams

Snowflakes

Ok I 'm here in the South. Last week or so ago the snow missed us and went to Atlanta. This week the snow went to South Georgia and turned to ice on the beach of Saint Simons Island. Again we were missed here in Middle Georgia.
 Monday is the big Georgia/Alabama game and they are calling for rain but a low of 33. I wonder if we will get any ice or snow? It usually happens when its not predicted.
I still have a cool product for cutting snowflakes, linking it to symmetry(both math and an element of art design) and some cool ideas about creating art with those snowflakes. Here is the link:
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Snowflakes-and-Symmetry-1007433

I also have Winter coloring sheets. Here's the link:
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Winter-Coloring-Sheets-2197096

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everybody! Ready to go back to school? Snow Wonderful snow? I wouldn't know. Here in the South we rarely get any. We usually get the dreaded ice. However it's a good time to teach cutting out snowflakes. My art lesson on Snowflakes and symmetry not only teaches how to cut out snowflakes but also gives suggestions what to do with those snowflakes.
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Snowflakes-and-Symmetry-1007433

Valentines and TPT Sale

SHHH! Guess What is about to happen!! A TPT sale! YAY! This is one of those great sales that I cant figure the math but EVERYTHING in my store is on sale at 20% off and TPT takes off another 10% off your total purchase. Somehow that equates to 28%. The sale is February 7 and 8 and the code is LOVETpT

Here's the link to my store:

www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Gena-Mcwilliams just click on this link to view my whole store.

Or if you are looking for Valentines projects, I have a few in my store. This one is a good one:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Valentines-and-Symmetry-534034

And there is this one that is just valentine coloring sheets:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Valentine-Coloring-Sheets-2979429

Happy Bargain Shopping !!! Mizz Mac

Back to School with Harriet Tubman and the Shoo Fly Quilt

The Harriet Tubman Museum in Macon, Ga is absolutely gorgeous! It was finally finished this year and I finally went in to see it today. OMG is it GORGEOUS!!! I am so proud that my hometown has such a beautiful museum.  Be sure to go upstairs. There are rooms with inventions that blacks have made, a huge mural one of our prominent black artists made depicting black heritage in Macon ( I have personal story to tell about this artist too) and in the Harriet Tubman room there are not only documents about the life and times of Harriet Tubman but one can view actual real nationally known artists work. Some of the artists I remember and have taught my students are john Biggers, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, and William Johnson.

In another room downstairs for Georgia black artists I got to see art work by the Dot Man who was featured in an article published in an issue of School Arts magazine when I first started teaching art. I was so excited!! It’s quite exciting to me to see the actual real artwork!

Another artist I must mention is Wini McQueen. She is one of our local black artists who mainly works in fabric, dying and using photographs in her pieces. She was commissioned by the Tubman to create banners and quilts depicting the history of the black people in Georgia and they are hung in the rotunda.

As sad as the past is let us all remember so it won’t be repeated.

Check out my arts integration lesson on the Shoo Fly quilt. Legend says it helped the blacks in their flight on the Underground Railroad: 

www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Shoo-Fly-Art-music-math-shapes-review-for-back-to-school-972741

Three-d shapes in art or How to draw a cube

3-d shapes in art are called form. There are two kinds of form like there are two kinds of shapes- geometric and natural or organic. The 3-d shapes in Math currently being used by teachers are called geometric constructed forms, using art terms. Young children, generally, do not visually perceive 3-d forms. They visually perceive flat shapes. As they grow older they become more visually attuned to forms. When they can see forms, that’s when art teachers begin teaching how to create the illusions of 3-d forms. So now how do we teach the 3-d shapes/forms that Math and geometry standards dictate?

Apparently we can teach how to create geometric forms, particularly the cube or rectangle. Here are two methods and illustrations.

1.       Draw a square or rectangle on your paper. Draw another square or rectangle the same size but overlap the first square or rectangle like a Venn diagram. Connect the corners with lines- upper right to upper right, upper left to upper left, lower right to lower right, and lower left to lower left. Erase inside lines.

2.       The second way is to draw a horizontal line somewhere on your paper. Draw a square or a rectangle under the horizontal line. Draw a point or a dot on the horizontal line. Draw 3 diagonal lines from the dot on the horizontal line to 3 corners of the square or rectangle. Draw a horizontal line above the top of the rectangle/square between the top two diagonal lines. Draw a vertical line from the end of the previously drawn horizontal line down to the bottom diagonal line. Erase the diagonals between the dot and the 3-d shape.

3.       Illustrations of both methods:

Young children love drawing the cubes but when they draw from their imagination, they will still draw houses etc. with flat shapes. In time they will want to draw the other side of a house or will want to know how to make something look 3-d.  Mizz Mac

More of Mizz Mac’s lessons can be found in her store at www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/Gena-Mcwilliams.