raheem tech

  I've been teaching for many a year and it's always just been my assumption that kindergarten is loud. Like REALLY loud. It wasn't until recently, when I popped into a kindergarten classroom, that I noticed that they aren't ALWAYS this way. I walked into this room and they were working...calmly. Quietly. Like, frighteningly so. As if they were up to no good or plotting the next time they were coming to art and going to drive me bonkers with their incessant jib-jab. When I asked the teacher why they were so quiet, she was all, "what do you mean? They're working. They always work this way."  SAY WHAT NOW?! Not long after that, @art_with_mia who I love and follow on Instagram, shared that she recently started using something called Quiet Critters in her art room. Now I've heard of teachers using stuffed animals as quiet incentives before...but these small sparkly pompoms seemed like an easier alternative. With the noise level in my art room with kinderga...

If you are looking at my blog right before bedtime, lemme just go ahead and apologize for this nightmarishly frightening image. But I had so much fun creating this mess-terpiece from a $1.50 thrift store frame, that I just had to share it with you! Here's the process: The idea started last week when I introduced my kindergarten to something called "Quiet Critters"...I'll be sharing more about those magical beasts later this week (tomorrow, I hope but we'll see how life goes). The short story is that my Q.C.'s only come to the quietest and hardest working tables in kindergarten. Here's what they look like: Giant pompoms with eyeballs, feet and antennae glued to the them. I JUST started using this system with my kindergarten as they are my noisiest crew...and, so far, they are working wonders! Each Q.C. is named after a famous artist with the plan being that I'll introduce one of those artists every other art class. Last week, we met Mona Lisa! Here'...

This summer, I was challenged with the task of coming up with a fun sewing project for kids. I called them Stuffed Pizzas Plushies and I was so excited to do it with my students. But when it came time to do it...I got this wild hair that these pizza slices should be big. So big that they could act as pillows...hence our HUGE Pizza Pillows!   If there has ever been a project that my students have been BONKERS over, this.is.it. They have loved learning to sew, coming up with toppings and, of course, using puffy paint. Some even wanted to create faces on their pizzas which I was all for. Here's the video I created this summer. I shared it with my students but just reminded them that their pizzas would be about triple in size. This project took us three one hour art classes to complete. Here's the break down: Day One: The kids got their pizza crust fabric and their tissue paper pattern. I created the pattens by simply making a triangle with a curved top for the crust. You can see ...

I have been oversharing this lesson so much on my Instagram because I LOVE IT! My second graders learned so much in the making of these kindness prints: how to create a printing plate, make marker prints, pull ink prints, burnish their printing plate with spray paint, steel wool and aluminum, use Model Magic to mix colors and create a heart and...last but not least, pick a word of kindness that best resonates with them. DID I MENTION THAT THIS LESSON PACKED A PUNCH?! Holy cats! But, y'all. I'm in LOVE.   So, how did we create these masterpieces? I created a video to share the process. I thought I'd break it down class-by-class what we worked on. Keep in mind that I have 30 minute art classes with my 2nd graders...so I'll be breaking down my lesson in baby bites for those of you that have hour long classes. Just combine my two days and you'll know what you can accomplish in one class of an hour. Day One: Chatted about Robert Indiana, looked at his LOVE sculpture. Fro...

Yay! I made something for my art room! It's been, like, 10 minutes, since I last made something for my most favoritest space , so why not, right?! I'm currently on an All-Things-Rainbows bender and let's just hope I like it for a VERY long time. It had been YEARS since I'd moved in to my art room (nearly 15!) and I hadn't really changed anything until this year...meaning, I just kept piling poster on top of poster until it was just a cluttered disaster. This past summer, I tore it all down and told myself I was redecorating, rearranging and organizing the entire space. Six months later, I'm STILL in the middle of it all but I can't tell you how excited I am everyday when I walk into my art room. In fact, I've been spending entirely too many Sundays in my art room, sprucing the place up. Now that I've got the revamp bug, I'm looking forward to tackling my home this summer. But, I'm getting off track. Crayola bins!   I was inspired to create th...

  Hello, friends! If you saw my post earlier this week , I said I'd be sharing a follow-up lesson to our Jasper Johns-inspired alphabet paintings . Here's a peak at that project:   And the video lesson! I see my kindergarteners for 40 minutes, once a week. I knew they'd zip through the alphabet painting...so I shared with them a super fun Chicka Chicka Boom Boom video from YouTube and challenged them to make a painting of upper and lower case letters. This resulted in beautiful black and white paintings of letters. We piled them on to the drying rack and were done for the day...two masterpieces complete!   Once the ink is dry from the bingo daubers, my students are going to "hug" their letters with water soluble markers. Then they'll add just water right over their marker lines for this fabulous result!   Another alternative to having them paint over their lines is simply spray them with water! Once class only had moments left so we did this trick and, while I...

This kindergarten lesson was so fun for my students that I wanted to share! I even created a video of the process. The beginning of this video will show you how to create your own Texture Rubbing Plates with simple supplies like tagboard and hot glue! Here's the video: I will tell you some things that I did in preparation for this lesson: * I made a set of texture rubbing plates, about 6 for each pair of students to share. Having a variety really helped them stay engaged in this portion of the lesson. * With the help of a fellow specials teacher, I folded the paper and created the grid. This took time but I did it well in advance and I'm so glad I did.  * When we did the alphabet, I did have "cheat sheets" for them at their tables to share with their neighbors. This way they could look at the sheet as a reference for writing their letters of the alphabet. * I prepped the bingo daubers with ink. That's what the kids are using...and a lot of my lessons are currently...