Showing posts with label podcast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label podcast. Show all posts

Monday, July 13, 2020

Season 2 of the Cassie Stephens Podcast!

I'm baaaaack!

I took a small hiatus from my podcast back in March when I learned we were not returning to school. Suddenly my focus was on distance learning...and not much else! I had no intention of taking a break but, for me, it was necessary. However, I'm so thrilled to announce that I'm back with two episodes of Season 2! They're titled How to Prepare for the Unknown, Part 1 & 2...kinda appropriate, right? I do hope you enjoy. If you know other teachers who might, please feel free to pass this along. I would also love to read your comments so feel free to leave them wherever you listen to the podcast. Thanks, ya'll!

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Wednesday, July 10, 2019

DIY: A Dress for Dot Day!

Oh hey, hello and HIIIIIII! I would just like to say that I know I have officially become the World's Worst Blogger. I've gotten lame with blogging frequently (I swear to you it was on my To Do list to have at least three posts up this week and here we are at numero uno), I'm miserable at responding to comments (mostly because I'm so busy DELETING THE VIAGRA SPAM COMMENTS, like what?!) and I've just been busy. Like, I don't know how or why but my summer has become consumed with stuff that I wouldn't necessarily call fun...and it's all my own evil doing. But I promise (and I know I've been sayin' this for months) that Ima try, nay, I WILL be better. I have some big ideas in my little head and I'm excited to work them out and share them with you.

But WHATEVER. Let's talk about this dress, people!
I mean, look at that size of that circle skirt, would you?! It's just so...BIG (that's what she said! Sorry...I know the year is 2019 but I will forever be livin' la vida El Office). At the start of spring, I cut out no fewer than 8 dresses from pretty much the same pattern. I had this idea that I just might get a whole lot more sewing done if I did it in batches. You see, I already know the pattern that I love...after years of sewing dresses, I always gravitate towards the same pattern: a 1950's fit and flair. So I cut out and started stitching bunches. And so far...I've only managed to finish two. Le sigh. 
I honestly cannot tell you where my summer time has gone! It's been frustrating for me as I see my days evaporate. And yet I look at my To Do list and I see I'm slowly ticking things off (like my husband...I tick him off daily) and getting maybe JUST MAYBE a little closer to my goals. But that time spent pursuing other things means less time for blogging, sewing and all the other things I love. 
 I usually tackle small tasks. Ones that I know I can knock out in a short time frame. Cuz a short time frame matches my short attention span. But now I've got a couple of big dreams and big goals I am trying to reach and ultimately want to share with you. SO...while I'm going to try, nay, I WILL BE BETTER HERE...just know that I'm still around and working on something that I'm excited about. And I hope you will be too. 
Until then, I love ya lots, Polka Dots! I did make this dress to help celebrate International Dot Day...so I thought I'd share with you just a few of my favorite Dot Day projects. Back to school is upon us and Dot Day is one of my most favorite ways to kick off the school year...so here's a buncha links to my fave projects based on Peter H. Reynolds The Dot:



Oh my lanta, I just realized after doing a little googling that I have a TON of Dot Day projects! I'll make sure to do a proper blog post soon and link them all...until then, y'all rest up and enjoy the last bits and pieces of your summer. I know Ima try!

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Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Cassie Stephens Podcast!

Hey, y'all! I’m so excited (and nervous with sweaty hands but mostly excited) to share with you the Cassie Stephens Podcast! Creating this podcast was one of the first things I put on my Summertime To Do list and I'm thrilled (and really rather shocked) that I am able to bring it to life.  It's been a lotta work and I am equal parts frightened and thrilled to share it with you. 

As you might know, I have worked with The Art of Ed for some time on the podcast Everyday Art Room. I learned so much from that experience and I am so thankful for that opportunity. This week will be my final episode with Everyday Art Room before passing the mic to Nic Hahn who I am positive is going to do an INCREDIBLE job (go, Nic!). I'm excited to hear what she has to share. 

While I have much more to share on all things art teacherin in this new podcast, I wanted a place where I could also speak about life: my bouts with depression, feeling lost, hating myself both as a teacher and a human, struggling to figure out just who I am, what I want out of life and how to love the person I am...it sounds dark and sad (but, y’all know me, it wont be for long!) but that is life. The part of life so many of us hide from or refuse to talk about. Well, I want to talk about it. Along with our day to day art teacherin life. Because that IS life: a mixed bag of family, work, feelings and figuring it all out. Here's just a bit more:
Many of you have asked about making the podcast available iTunes and I'm working on that. When it's available there, I will def let you know. Until then, you can find it on Breaker, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, Spotify and Pocket Casts. I'm also trying to figure out how to make it available for you right here! 

If you'd like to listen from your laptop or whatever device you are currently using, you can simply click these links to my first six episodes!

Episode 1: Welcome to Art Teacherin' with Cassie Stephens

Episode 2: Is this IT?! 

Episode 3: You're Hired! Now WHAT?!

Episode 4: What Teachers without Children of their Own Want You to Know

Episode 5: The Piano Story (for adult listeners only!)

Episode 6: Discovering Your Art Teacherin' Identity

It's been a learning curve for sure as I'm doing all the recording, editing and the rest. You'll have to be patient with me...at least more patient than I've been with myself. You don't know how many times I nearly tossed this idea out the window. But what I want to share with you means so much to me...so I'm gonna keep on trying to make that happen. 

Love y'all! And I would love to hear what you think. xo!
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Sunday, October 8, 2017

Everyday Art Room, Episode 9: Burnout

This week, over on Everyday Art Room, I am addressing burnout. I know what you are thinking: Girl, we just started back to school, aren't you talkin' burnout a little early? Maybe...but not for me. You see, I've been feeling that weird, overworked/overwhelmed and under-excited sensation for a couple of weeks. I'm pretty good at the fake-it-til-you-make-it biz but it is catching up with me. Thankfully, for me, I'm heading in to fall break. The hubs and I are taking a trip, I'm getting my first every massage and I plan to do a whole lot of crafting, netflixing and relaxing. Since I was feeling a little meh, I thought I'd address it this week because I know I'm not alone. You can take a listen to the podcast here. I'll be sharing the complete transcript on the blog today.
I have addressed Burnout before in this Art Teacherin' 101. I've been to Burnout Town many a time. I'm usually to blame because of the following bad habits: 

1. Piling too much on my plate.
2. Rarely saying NO to anything.
3. Frustration over my lack of consistency and the results that follow in my art room.

I'm truly to blame for my own burnt-to-a-crispness. Knowing that, it's something I work on. Now, enough about all that, let's get to the podcast!


At the beginning of every Everyday Art Room podcast, I start with a story. I personally refer to it as story time. I don’t know if you’ve realized it or not. You might, if you have figured it out, refer to it as torture time. Be that as it may, I’m going to share a story with you right now. Now, usually, I share stories that are of the humorous nature. This one’s a little different.
I would say it was probably in my fifth or seventh, or who knows when, year of teaching. When you’ve been teaching as long as I have, you start to lose track. I was feeling sick a lot, and not the kind of sick where a kid sneezed on you and now you’re just laid flat for a week. No, the kind of sick where I could tell something was on my mind and it was affecting me physically, making me feel ill. I went to a doctor, and I told her that I was feeling stressed. It was causing me to feel unwell. I was getting a lot of headaches, and I was seeking advice from the doc on what I should do.
She was really concerned. She said to me, “Wow, it sounds like you have a really stressful job. What is it that you do?” I said, “I’m an elementary art teacher.” She paused and then laughed at me. I get it. I understood. I understand why she laughed. At the same time, I thought, “This is a person who doesn’t get it.” I know it might seem, to the average person on the outside, that I finger-paint all day, but, as you know, we don’t. Our job can be stressful, and it can lead to something called burnout. I’m very familiar with burnout. I actually was just familiar with burnout last week. Let’s talk about it. This is Everyday Art Room, and I’m Cassie Stephens.
Now, I’m going to be really honest with you guys today. I have actually experienced the joys of burnout many a time. Like I said, just last week, I was really contemplating my life’s choices, so to speak. Probably the most game-changerin’, if that’s a word … It is now … time that I had burnout was back in 2012, and I remember the year well because it’s when I decided to start blogging. Here’s how it went down, Charlie Brown. I was really feeling like I was stuck in a rut. I wasn’t creating. My passion had always been painting. I wasn’t doing that at all. I would come home and watch television, and go to bed, and go to school, and not do lessons that were very inspired or inspiring. I was just kind of repeating things I had done from year to year. I was bored, basically.
I thought, “You know what, I really enjoy looking at blogs.” At that time, I really enjoyed looking at blogs where girls were featuring the outfits that they were wearing, so I thought, “What if I start a blog where I share a lesson that I create, something that I personally have created, a DIY, and what I’ve worn that week? What if I do that? If I do that, it’ll kind of help me hold my feet to the fire and make it so that every week I’m really thinking about a new lesson to share with my students, something fun that I can create to tap into my creative juices and get them flowing again, and to showcase something that I love to do, which is dress like a crazy person.” That’s how my blog, which is called Cassie Stephens … Obviously, I didn’t spend a lot of creative power coming up with that name … came to be. A lot of people used to refer to it as What the Art Teacher Wore because that was a big feature on my blog.
All that to say, that was a real game changer for me. Suddenly, I was excited to go to school because I had come up with a fun project. I was excited to go home and create, not watch television, because I had a really fun DIY that I had a deadline for, that I knew had the week to come up with it and share it. Then, of course, I really enjoy dressing like a fool, so it’s always fun to share that aspect. That’s my journey. That’s what I did. I’m not saying all y’all need to go out and start a blog. What I am saying is that finding your passion, tapping into it, probably something that you’ve neglected … You’ve neglected yourself for a long time, I’m guessing, if you’re feeling burnout … is going to really help you get out of that rut.
Like I said, that’s my journey. Now I want to share with you my top seven ways to get out of burnout. Let’s start with number one. Number one, know that it is okay. You are not broken. You are still a fabulous art teacher. You are just experiencing burnout. It’s natural. It happens to all of us. Sometimes it’s hard to believe when you get on social media that these awesome art teachers that you follow might actually experience burnout, but they do. If they tell you they don’t, they be lying. Don’t believe them. I’m telling you, I’ve been there many a time. Know that it’s okay. Don’t judge your feelings. Listen to them. That’s thing number one.
Thing number two, like I said a moment ago, know that we have all been there. Knowing that, consider reaching out to another art teacher. Ask them, “hey, I’m feeling a little bit burnt out. Have you been there?” You know they have. “What do you do to kind of get yourself out of that rut?” If you don’t have a fellow art teacher and buddy to reach out to, then consider a friend at school. If you’re comfortable with your admin, talk to your administration. They might have some really good tips to help you get out of that rut. They might be able to offer a book for you to read or even some classes to take.
Or just talk to somebody completely removed from the situation, like, tip number three, a therapist. Okay, I’m going to get real with you. Your insurance should cover a therapist. If your insurance covers a therapist and you are feeling burnout, get a therapist. I am a big advocate of talking to a therapist. I spent a long time talking to one. He was fabulous. It was a great experience. It was great to just talk to somebody who was totally removed from the situation, because what he did for me was he offered a completely different perspective. There’s nothing wrong with you or with talking to a therapist. Okay, I’m stepping off my therapist soapbox.
Number four, treat yo’self. Yes. I am a big Aziz Ansari fan, and I firmly believe in his words of wisdom of “Treat yo’self.” If you are feeling in a rut, then take yourself out of the situation. Go somewhere fun after school. One of my favorite ways to treat myself after school if I’m feeling like I just need a break is to go to the thrift store and the Dollar Tree. That is how I roll. That is how I treat myself. Seriously. The funny thing is is that because we can never turn our art-teachering brain off, I get so much inspiration when I go to places like the thrift store and the Dollar Tree. I also find a lot of DIY project ideas while I’m there. Think of what you really enjoy doing. Maybe it’s getting a mani-pedi. Maybe it’s, I don’t know, a massage, something a little bit more elaborate and fancy than going to the thrift store or the Dollar Tree. Now you know how I roll. Treat yourself. You deserve it, and sometimes you really need it.
Let’s talk about number five. This is what I was chatting about at the very beginning of this little convo, returning to your passions. Like I said, my passion used to be painting. I got my BFA in painting in college, and for some reason, I had it in my head that you could only be a true artist if (a) you were painting all the time and (b) you were painting all the time. Seriously, I had a really hard time getting that notion out of my head and just knowing that, no, just creating in general is being creative. You don’t have to go with that idealized version of an artist to be an artist. Just make something, which is now what I do constantly. I am always making something.
The thing is, I’m never painting. That’s the hilarious part. I’ve never returned to that passion. I actually think that I got that one out of my system, but I do really enjoy creating. It’s my passion. I love wearing crazy clothes, so sewing is also a passion. What I have found is that creating is like a ball rolling down a hill. Once the ball starts rolling, it just picks up momentum and it moves faster and faster, and pretty soon you find that you have more projects than you have time, whereas, in the past, I was always stumped for ideas. I never had anything that I was looking forward to making because I hadn’t gotten the ball rolling. Stop and think about what your passions are, and take some time, because it’s very important, to focusing on creating. It’s what brought you to art teachering in the first place.
All right, let’s talk about number six. Go easy on yourself. Think of the KISS method. Keep It Simple, Stupid. I’m talking about in the art room. I have kindergarten through fourth grade students. That means I have five lessons I need to come up with, or do I? Sometimes when I’m feeling a little bit burnt out and I’m feeling like I just am stressed … I’m getting out five different sets of art supplies and prepping five different visuals and videos and lessons … I just take a break and think, “You know what, it is okay if kindergarten and first grade do the same project, and it is okay if second and third, or even fourth, do the same project.” It’s fine. Keep it simple. What will happen is is that you’ll be happier, and as we all know, a happy art teacher makes for a happy art room. If you’re feeling burnt out, relax, breathe, and keep it simple, stupid. Sorry, I said the S word.
Last but not least, and this one is really important, get off social media. If you are feeling burnt out, it’s probably because you’re comparing yourself and your life to others. FYI, what people post on social media is the good stuff. Most people aren’t sharing the nitty-gritty, the bad, the ugly, because people don’t want to paint that picture of themselves. It’s just human nature, myself included. Just take a little social media break.
Put down your phone, enjoy the fam, create something, treat yourself, and keep it simple, and talk to a therapist. I think if you do at least a couple of those things, you’ll find that the burnout starts to ease a little bit and hopefully will eventually go away. I hope that’s been a little bit helpful to you. Hopefully, you’ve gotten a little nugget of info or an idea for you. Thanks for letting me share what’s worked for me.
Tim Bogatz: Hello, this is Tim Bogatz from Art Ed Radio. As you probably know, Art Ed PRO is the subscription service for professional art teachers offered by The Art of Ed. Earlier this week, we released three new learning packs, one on beginning with watercolor painting, one on diving deep in color theory, and one on using games in the art room. All of them are great, and all of them are really in-depth. Each of the three learning packs has between 15 and 20 videos, and all of them also have about a dozen resources that you can print immediately and use in your classroom. PRO members get three new learning packs every single month, and you have 24/7 access to every learning pack in the library. Sign up for your 30-day free trial and check out everything at artedpro.com. Before you go sign up, though, you should probably give Cassie your attention for the rest of this episode. Enjoy.
Cassie Stephens: Now it’s time to take a little dip into the mailbag. This first question comes from Casey. Casey asks, “I’m curious if you have ever considered getting your National Board Certification, and what’s your opinion on that?” Well, I have never considered getting my National Board Certification because I’ve spoken with people who have their National Board Certification and it does not sound like my cup of tea. From what I’ve heard, there is a lot of paperwork, deadlines, and organization involved. Those three words are not my favorite. I do know that people who have pursued getting their National Board education have said that they feel like it has made them a better teacher, they’ve been more reflective of their methods, and improved upon art teachering.
This is funny because it really does tie into burnout. If I were to pursue my National Board Certification, it would be a quick ticket to burnout town for me. For me, I know what works, and I know if I wanted to learn something new or become a better teacher, I would be better suited to take a class, a ceramics class, a sewing class, where I’m pursuing my passion, but also gaining knowledge that I can bring back to my art room. But that’s me. If National Board Certification sounds like your cup of tea, then I say go ahead and drink it, but I also would suggest talking to somebody who’s gotten their National Board Certification, who can speak a lot more intelligently on the topic. Great question, Casey.
My next question comes from Kathleen. Kathleen says, “In the very first episode of Everyday Art Room, you mentioned a game called The Smartest Artist, but you didn’t explain how it works. Can you do that, please?” I would love to. In fact, I have created a video with The Art of Ed that does a better job probably than I’m about to do of explaining The Smartest Artist Game because there’s a visual.
Essentially, this is what we do. My students line up, and once everybody is in line, I pick three students standing nicely in line, a boy, a girl, and then whoever else is standing nicely. There’s a dry erase board on an easel standing nearby, and I give the boy and the girl a dry erase marker. I give the third student something called a sound machine. It’s this tiny little gadget that can make sound effects. You can find a sound machine on Amazon.
I say to the students, “Now it’s time for …” and they all reply, “The Smartest Artist.” Then I say, “All right, this is a question for the girls. Girls, can you please tell me the primary colors?” While they’re in line, the girls will raise their hand, and my friend who is a girl with the dry erase marker will call on one of the girls. If the girls get the answer correct, then they get a point on the dry erase board. The sound effects person with the sound machine … There’s a couple of fun little sounds on there, like a drum roll and an applause, so that’s what that student takes care of. They are the sound effects engineer.
Once the girls have gotten their point, we pass the next question on to the boys. We go back and forth with this usually a couple of times until the time is up, and we do this as a great review, and it’s also great to do if you have a couple of minutes where you’ve lined your kids up a pinch too early, not to mention they absolutely love The Smartest Artist game. Kathleen, I hope that claresified it … Girl, probably not. I hope that clarifies it just a pinch. Like I said, check out that video on The Art of Ed for a visual.
Guys, if you have any questions for me, feel free to send them my way at theeverydayartroom@theartofed.com.
Y’all, thank you so much for letting me share my many voyages to burnt out town with you and what has worked for me. Let’s go over them one more time.
Know that it’s okay. We’ve all been there. In fact, sometimes I feel like I’m the driver of the burnt out bus. Get on board, y’all. Let’s figure this out.
Get a therapist. I can’t recommend it enough. It’s just like talking to somebody removed from the situation.
Treat yourself. I also can’t recommend that enough, although, you know, going to the Dollar Tree and the thrift store might be a little bit lowbrow for you, so find what really will help you feel better and feel treated.
Return to your passions. That’s super important, and that’s really what helped me get out of my rut.
Go easy on yourself. Remember the KISS method when you’re in your art room. You’ll be much happier when you’re relaxed, and a happy art teacher makes for a much happier art room.
Last but certainly not least, get off social media. Take a break. Live in the now, y’all.
Thank you so much for letting me share my many trips to burnt out town. This is Everyday Art Room, and I’m Cassie Stephens.
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Friday, September 15, 2017

Everyday Art Room: Episode 6

Aw, Lawd, y'all. If you've not listened to this week's podcast, I PROMISE you, you won't wanna miss it. The tale I tell at the start is my VERY favorite art teacherin' story. It's also one that I was surprised that AOE was okay to let air. It's a gem...enjoy! You can find the complete podcast right here
Teaching kindergarten is ALWAYS an interesting ride. I thought I'd share the transcript from the podcast here. I also recently recorded myself teaching kindergarten. Here is our first day of art together...
And here is a recording of our class this week. 
We have a lot of fun together! You can find an entire unit on LINE with kindergarten projects here. Also, if you search my blog for "kindergarten" you'll get a little bit of everything from clay lessons, painting units and more! Now, on with the transcript:


Is it just me or does every really good story in the art room always begin with Kindergarten? I mean it never really seems funny or humorous at the time, let’s be honest, but they do make for really good stories. So I’ve got one for you. I had Kindergarten in my room and we were talking about ROYGBIV, and chatting about how letter in ROYGBIV stands for a color in the rainbow. But the kids were stumped on the letter V. So I gave them a clue. I said, “Okay guys. It looks like purple but starts with a V.” And this really bright girl, very artistic, her hand shot up. I could see a light bulb went off and I just knew this one had the answer. So I called on her. And here’s what she said. “Vagenta.”
I paused just like that with my jaw dropped. And in that moment, because of my pause, I guess the other children assumed that that yes, indeed was the correct answer and the next thing I know I’ve got 20 five year old said saying the word vagenta. Yo, I don’t know what vagenta is. I don’t even think I want to know. And I understand how she combined the two words, violet and magenta, very clever but never a word I want to hear spoken in my art room again. Ah Kindergarten. Today we’re going to talk about how to tame that wild beast. This is Everyday Art Room. And I’m Cassie Stephens.
I don’t think any amount of art education prepares you for the beast that is Kindergarten. Every year when they come trampling into my art room it’s like I have forgotten, once again, just how wild and crazy these wee ones can be. If you do it right, they can end up being your most favorite classes to teach. After all they are a bundle of excitement, questions, interest, and curiosity. The perfect specimen for the art room. If you can tame that beast. So today I’m going to share with you my four tips to getting you kindergarten class to the most amazing level that you possibly can.
Now you’re going to have to bear with me. It’s going to be a bumpy ride. This is a beast after all, but like I said one of the best kind to have in your art room. So let’s start with number one. My first tip for taming that Kindergarten beast, is out crazying the crazy. I mean let’s face it, they’re pretty wild. If you can get them in your art room and really ramp it up over and above their expectations you will immediately have captured their attention. And isn’t that what you need to do first? No amount of, “Please sit quiet. Please put your hands in your lap. Please make sure you’re sitting on your bottom,” none of that is going to capture all of their attention. You’re going to end up fighting a battle of the stop, quits, don’ts, and I promise you Kindergarten will win each and every time.
For those first couple of days in art class, you got to be even more wild and crazy than the kids are to really capture their attention. Here’s what I do. I start the very first day of art with my Kindergarten students, with the Larry the Lion poem. Once everybody’s seated, I show them how to hold their arms in a specific way to make a snake. Try it with me. Take your left arm, and hold it horizontally under your chest. Take your right arm and hold it vertically underneath the fingertips of your left arm. You’re essentially making a big L. The vertical line, that’s your snake. So with your hand, create a puppet mouth. And, get ready, repeat after me.
I teach them real fast that whenever they hear me clear my throat that means they’re about to repeat after me. “Larry, the lion, is a friend of mine.” In which case our Larry nods his head gives us a smooch on the cheek. “He can make three straight lines for me. Vertical,” in which case we’re holding our arm up and down. Then tilt it a little bit. “Diagonal.” Now have it lay on top of your left arm horizontally. “Horizontal. Any curve, he can learn with a twist and a turn. When he’s out of his tangle, he makes great angle. Any line, he can make. After all, he’s a snake.” Now I have a video of myself doing these motions so you can actually see the hand motions that I teach my students. It’s on my YouTube channel. You’re more than welcome to take this back to your own art teachering world. I promise you your Kindergarten friends will love it.
We do that poem about two or three times getting louder and more crazy every time. Then I really out crazy the crazy. I bring out a stuffed snake. With my stuffed snake I form different lines and review the names of the lines we just talked about. Now you want to talk about being wild and crazy and having everybody’s attention, all you got to do is pull out a stuffed snake with Kindergartners and you’ve got them hooked. So that’s tip number on. Out the crazy the crazy.
Another tip is this. If you notice, after you’re covering your rules and routines, because let’s be honest, you have to do that with your Kindergarten kids of course. In a more abbreviated manner. You might notice that they’re a little bit squirrely. And like I said, you don’t want to get into a battle of the stop, quit, don’ts because they will win. Instead, sometimes you got to go with my second tip which is ride the wave. Don’t fight it. In fact whenever I have a classroom of Kindergarten kids or any of my classes in fact, and I can tell there’s an excitement in the room that I am not going to be able to fight, it’s just present and I’m going to have to ride that wave because you can not fight it.
And if you find yourself in that kind of predicament, here’s what I always do. This works great for all of my students, but especially my Kindergarteners. I’ll say, “Okay, everybody stand up.” Once everybody’s standing, myself included, I’ll clear my throat and we do a little dance. I’ll say, “Clap your hands,” and we do it. “Clap your hands,” and they do it. “Clap them just like me.” Then, “Shake your bottom,” and I demonstrate. “Shake your bottom,” I do it again. “Shake it just like me.” We go through the twist, the mash potato, the swim, I keep on going until I feel like they’ve gotten the giggles and wiggles out. When that’s the case, we end it with “Take a deep breath, let it out. Relax just like me.” And I really turn down the tone and the speed of my voice, and I say, “Let’s see who’s sitting so nicely in the first row with their hands in their lap.”
Once you get the giggles and the wiggles out, and they’re seated on the floor you’ll notice, especially if you change the way that you’re speaking like I’ve changed mine, you’ll notice that the temperature in the room, the mood is a lot calmer. You rode the wave, you rode it out. Mission accomplished. Now granted, that’s just being silly and dancing. If you want to make it educational, why not do that? I once learned from an art teacher, have all of your kids stand up and do this. Have their arms out side-by-side and say, “Horizontal,” please forgive my singing, “Horizontal. Side to side. Side to side.” My hands are sweating because I feel so stressed singing in front of you guys. My apologies. Have their arms go up and down. “Vertical goes up and down. Vertical goes up and down.” Then have the kids lean. “Diagonal. Diagonal.” Another great way to ride the wave, wiggles and giggles begone. And it’s educational.
Now sometimes you are going to need to calm those friends down which brings me to number three. In episode four I chatted about being calm and bringing a calmness to your art room. One way to do that, I mentioned, is something called palming. Now I won’t go through palming all over again in this episode, but if you go back to episode four I share with you how to do palming. Y’all, if you have kids that you are trying to calm down, palming is the best way to do it. I can’t recommend it enough. And like I said, using your voice, the diction of your voice, and your breath is really impactful when you’re trying to relax and calm children. Kindergarteners are little mirrors of you. If you’re excited, they’re excited. If you start to bring the level down, most of them will eventually catch on and do the same.
All right. So this brings me to number four. You remember the show ER? Of course we all remember that show. And I just remember in every episode of ER they were always shouting, “We’re losing them. We’re losing them,” in which case they would bring out those paddles and give them electric shock. I every now and then have that running through my mind when my Kindergartners are either walking around, they’re painting, it’s getting a little bit dangerously close to chaos and I just think, “We’re losing them. I’m losing them,” And I want to bust out those paddles and just give them a jolt to bring them all back together.
So one way, if you notice that your bag of tricks is empty and you’re starting to lose them, here are some last resorts. One thing my students in Kindergarten and other grades as well, really respond to are videos. Especially really great singy songy videos. My favorite are created by Scratch Garden, and they can be found on YouTube. There’s a great one about lines, and colors, and shapes. We watch it enough in my room, that the children have the song memorized. So that way as soon as I turn it on, I notice that the kids are starting to clean up or they’re in different phases of creating, and some of them are coming to the floor to come back for circle time.
I just press play, and and the whole room kind of gets very calm as they all start singing the line song, or the color song. So I’d really recommend having that in your bag of kindergarten tricks. One more tip, I love the books called Look. Or Look again by Tana Hoben. These are picture books and all they are are photographic images that she’s zoomed in very close and what I do is I share that book with my students when they start to trickle to the floor, my early finishers. And we look at the blown up images and try to guess what they are pictures of.
It creates a great calming game. We bring in a lot of the element of art like line and texture. And it’s an awesome book just to have on hand when you have a couple of minutes to spare. Something for your bag of Kindergarten tricks.
All right guys. So remember, you can tame this awesome Kindergarten beast. I hate to even use that word, because they really are amazing creatures and they want to be in your room so bad. They’re so enthusiastic and absolutely delightful if you can get them tamed. This is Cassie Stephens. And this is Every Day Art Room.
Tim Bogatz: I hope you’re enjoying this episode of Every Day Art Room. I love all things Kindergarten, and if you are the same way I want to recommend the Art of Ed’s Rethinking Kindergarten online graduate course. It is a great way to give your Kindergartners the teaching that fits their developmental needs. You will study the Reggio Amelia approach, exploring your role as an educator, and the role of the arts in our young student’s education. Rethinking Kindergarten is a two credit hour course that runs for four weeks. New sections will be starting in October, November, and December, and you can see more about the course or register at the ArtofEd.com/courses. Now let’s hear what Cassie has to say as she dips into the mailbag and finishes the show.
Cassie Stephens: All right. Let’s take a little dip into the mailbag. This question I actually get a lot, and it comes from Lauren. She asks, “What program do you use to record and edit your videos for the kiddos?” Great question Lauren. Let me just start by saying that you can use what you already have. Please don’t break the budget to create videos. Just either grab your phone, grab and iPad, and try using that. I like to create videos on my iPad. It’s probably my favorite way to do it because it’s the fastest. On your phone, or your iPad, you can download the iMovie device.
Now if you have an Android phone, which is what I’ve had in the past, you can not put iMovie on there. But there are a lot of other easy movie editing apps that you could add to your Android. I just don’t happen to know what they are. So for me, I record short clips with my iPad then I open up iMovie and I just start adding those short clips into iMovie. My favorite thing to do is to silence the clip and speed up the clip. And I do that for two reasons. I like to do voiceovers so I don’t have to think on my feet when I am recording. And I also am trying really hard to make my videos shorter. So speeding them up really helps with that.
iMovie is super fun and easy to use. I can’t really tell you how to use it here, simply because you need a visual. So for that I would strongly recommend you hop on over to YouTube. You can totally find all of your answers there. And by the way, if you ever want to use any of the videos I’ve created in my art room, you can find them on my channel, which is under my name, Cassie Stephens. You’re more than welcome to use those in your art teachering world. That’s precisely why I share.
Now if you’re going to make your videos maybe a little bit more pro looking, you could record them with your camera. I would definitely invest in a tripod. You don’t have to get a fancy one, just hop on over to your big box store and pick one up. Once you’ve gotten your clips filmed on your camera, then you can upload them to your laptop and edit that way. Doing it that way adds another layer of work. However, the laptop version of iMovie has a lot more things that you can do than you can do on your iPad. So those are my tips. My strongest recommendation would to be just do it. Dive right in, grab your phone, prop your phone up on a couple of books, press record. Why not? You don’t even have to edit it. Just share that with your kids, see what works. See what doesn’t work. Go for it.
If you have any questions for me, please feel free to send them my way at EverDayArtRoom@theartofed.com. It’s been so much fun chatting with you guys about the amazing creatures known as Kindergarten. Remember my four tips. Maybe they’ll help you out. You got to out crazy the crazy. Bring the excitement, that way they aren’t as distracted by other things or each other in your room. Shine a light on yourself, and you’ll have their attention. Also remember, don’t try to fight the wave. Ride the wave. Just go with it. If they’re excited, do something exciting. Make sure to ride that wave, otherwise you’ll just fall into a battle of the stop, quit, and do nots, and let’s face it. They going to win y’all. Always and forever. You can of course bring them back down with your calm voice, slow pace, and deep breathing.
Remember to check out episode four, and listen to how to do palming for calming with your students. And last but not least, if you feel like you’re losing them, make sure you have a couple of things in your bag of tricks. Grab some favorite books. Also don’t forget about the power of some awesome videos with song. It’s been so much fun chatting with you guys about the awesomeness that is Kindergarten. Talk to you soon.
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Sunday, September 10, 2017

In the Art Room: Everyday Art Room, Episode 5

Can I go all Honest Abe on y'all for a moment? I've been hosting the podcast Everyday Art Room for the last month and, for the first handful of episodes, something felt off. Because I've been working with The Art of Ed on this venture, I felt like I should sound, for lack of a better word, "professional". So I donned my Speech Geek hat (I was a big time speech geek in high school...much love to my amazing English teacher/speech coach Mr. Dave McKenzie!) and used my "speeching" voice...and not my for realz voice. The content was all me but the tone was...off. All that to say, I've dropped the act. I'm not "professional" (just ask my teacherin' buddies), I'm not an expert in my field and I seriously have a lot to learn about this thing we call art teacherin'. Don't we all? 
So, what am I trying to say? Who knows...that's the point, I certainly don't know! What I do know is that I hope you'll take a listen to Everyday Art Room if you haven't already. I have LOVED working on this podcast...I hope you enjoy it just as much. In case you are interested, here is the transcript: 

Some of you guys might know that I have a gong in my art room. That’s gong with a G, thank you very much. It’s our cleanup gong. It is a massive gong, 24-inch, and it is probably the coolest thing in my room, according to my students. I’ve been asked, “How did you get a gong in your art room?”
Well, it was a 10-year wedding anniversary gift, my present. What? You guys didn’t get one of those? Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s not the standard 10-year wedding anniversary gift, but it is if you are in my household. Anyway, I digress. It is obviously the coolest thing in my room, and we use it as a signal for cleanup.
As you know, cleanup can be a little bit hairy, so imagine, if you will, this scenario. I’ve got a room full of 25 first graders. We’re late, as usual. We’ve been painting, and cleanup has become pandemonium. I have a student. She’s standing at the gong. Her one and only job is to hit the gong, to signal to everybody else to stop and clean up, but for some reason, she’s frozen. She’s holding the mallet. She’s standing at the gong, and she’s not hitting the gong. It’s just then, that the classroom teacher walks in, and my administrator, to see, number one, why am I running late, as usual, and two, what’s all the chaos about?
That’s when, from across the room, a little girl shouts, “Hit the bong! It’s time to hit the bong!” to the frozen little girl at the gong with a G. It’s then, my admin turns to me and says, “Really, Stephens? Really?” This is Everyday Art Room, and I’m Cassie Stephens.
Today, we’re going to talk about all things cleanup. Cleanup, as you know, is a really important part of your art class, for a couple of reasons. It can salvage your sanity, your art supplies, and it’s how you end your art class. You always want to end your art class on a positive and upbeat note, not one where kids are yelling about hitting a bong and not cleaning your room up to your expectations.
Today, I’m going to share with you the Four F’s of Cleanup: How to Make Sure that Your Cleanup is Fun, Fast, Chaos Free, and has a Flow. I’m going to share those four tips with you today and hope that it’s something that you can take back to your art room and ensure that your cleanup is fun, fast, chaos free–there’s my F; that’s why I keep emphasizing free–and has a flow. Let’s start at the beginning.
Before you can think about how you’re going to introduce cleanup to your students, you need to put yourself in your students’ shoes. Go sit at one of their tables, get a paper, get some paint, have a little fun and create a painting, just relax. As you’re sitting there working, think about how the art room looks, through your students’ eyes. Then think about cleanup. Where will your students put their dirty brushes? Where will your students put their painting? Do you have one drying rack or multiple ones, like I do? Where will you position that drying rack, so that it’s easy for your students to get to, so there’s not a bottleneck of children? How will they clean their hands–oh, my goodness!–the bane of our existence? Once you’ve really sat down and thought those things through, then you’ll be much better prepared to introduce a cleanup routine that’s fun, fast–say it with me–chaos free, and has a flow. Let me share with you how my cleanup looks.
First of all, before my students even gather up their supplies to start their project, I do call and response. Call and response, if you’re not familiar, is when your students repeat after you. Believe it or not, I do this for every class, kindergarten through fourth grade, done it for years, so the kids know what to expect. In order for me to get their attention, to remind them that they’re about to repeat after me, I simply clear my throat–ahem–and they know that whatever I’m about to say, they are going to repeat.
I usually go through what our directions are for the day, what supplies they will be using, and I also cover cleanup. It might sound a little like this: “When I’m finished,” and then I pause for them to repeat, “I will take my paintbrush to the paintbrush hot tub.” That’s right. We have a can full of water that we refer to as the paintbrush hot tub. I have found that the sillier you make things, the more they stick. Silly sticks, so give that paintbrush hot tub a fancy name, and they’ll remember it.
Call and response really works for me in my art room, because it gets all of the children repeating with me and doing hand jives and hand motions where they will be cleaning up. That’s one way to make your cleanup a little faster. If your students know in advance what they are to do when they finish–and this really helps those early finishers–they don’t have to come up to you and ask you, “Hey, where do I put my painting?” because they already know. If you can get a call and response going, or if you can instill in your students where everything goes, before they even start working, that will make your cleanup a lot faster.
Now, let’s talk about chaos free. Whew! Last year, I had doubled up third and fourth grade classes. That means I was maxing out around 35 kids in my room, big kids, not the littles, and it could get really chaotic during cleanup. I mean, I literally would jut stand back and watch the chaos. I thought to myself, “Oh, it’s fine. It’s because there’s 35 of them. It’s supposed to look like this.” No, y’all. It doesn’t have to look that way. Let’s talk about how to make your cleanup chaos free.
I have a time timer in my room, and I set it so that it goes off about seven minutes before we are to leave, and that’s our two-minute warning. About two minutes before cleanup, in an effort to try to make cleanup chaos free, when the timer goes off, all of my students are to go to level zero–that means they are silent–and I just cover where everything goes, one more time, with them, and I make them help me with this. I’ll say, “Please point to where dirty paintbrushes go,” and all arms swing toward the paintbrush hot tub. “Please point to which drying rack you will be using. Please point to where aprons go. Please point to where baby wipes can be found,” if we’re using them that day. That way, one more time, in just a matter of seconds, all of my students understand where everything is going to go, so there’s no confusion and hopefully a little less chaos during cleanup.
Now, let’s talk about flow. Remember when I mentioned that you should sit and create a painting? When you’re done with that painting, make sure, when you’re putting things away, that there’s a flow, a flow of traffic. Think about yourself being like a crossing guard or a person directing traffic. You want the traffic of your room to have a flow, to make sense. Last year, I had all of my drying racks–they’re small and moveable–all in one place, and it created a huge bottleneck of children getting to the drying rack. Somebody always ended up dropping a painting or getting paint on them.
This year, I moved my drying racks in such a way that they are at the ends of every long table where children sit, so when they stand up, they’re automatically in line to put their artwork on the correct drying rack. It only took me 19 years to figure that one out, so I’m sharing it with you. I hope that little nugget helps you out. Think about how you could have more of a flow, so it’s not children going every which way. I even recently picked up, from the Dollar Tree, some of these reusable arrows that stick to the floor. That’s been a great way for me to visually share with my students my flow of traffic.
Now, last but not least is how to make cleanup fun. Okay, brace yourselves. I’m going to tell you about the best thing ever! It is called the cleanup contest. Dum-dum-dah! Oh, my goodness! This is a hit. Let me tell you how this goes down. I always pick one student, who’s working extremely hard, to play the cleanup gong. The gong is played five minutes prior to cleanup. When the kids hear the cleanup gong, this is how the contest works. They are to clean up at level zero. That’s right, silent cleanup. The reason we do this is because it really cuts down on the chaos.
I noticed a lot of times when we were cleaning, there were a lot of conversations going on that didn’t entail creating art and definitely didn’t have anything to do with cleanup, so forget about it. Go to silent cleanup. As the students are cleaning up, they are responsible for their own area.
I have yet to master the table jobs, so all of my students are responsible for cleaning after themselves. However, if they are finished cleaning up, and they have friends at their table who need help, they are to step up and help them out, so all of the tables are working together. They’re a team to get their tables tidy. The way the kids show me that they are completely finished cleaning up is they are to stand behind their pushed in chair, with a zero in the air, meaning they have their hand up, and they’re creating a zero with their fingers. This is how their table shows me they are ready. Usually, I try to emphasize that the best table gets all sorts of privileges. We don’t know what they are, but they just get a lot of praise from me. Isn’t that a privilege in itself?
Then I will usually choose one student, who’s standing exceptionally well, to be the cleanup contest judge. I’ll call that child to stand right next to me, and I have all of the kids–this is where the fun part comes in–do a drum roll on the back of their chair. It’s like a thunder in my room, a roar of thunder, and the kids stop when the judge makes the stop motion with their arm. One way to really ensure that they stop is to tell them that the judge is basing their choice upon who stops the fastest.
When the judge makes that motion with their arm, I make a big announcement, like this, “And the winner of the cleanup contest is …” I pass it over to the judge. They announce the table, and then there’s an eruption of an applause, and that table gets to line up, at level zero. Ah, and that’s how we do cleanup. It’s fun. It’s fast. It’s chaos free, as much as cleanup in the art room can be, and there’s a flow.
I hope that those tips have helped you. I hope that you can add them to your already awesome cleanup routine to make it even more awesomer. Thanks for letting me share that with you guys. It was fun.
Now it’s time to take a little dip into the mailbag. This question comes from Robin. Robin asks, “Do you have any wise words of advice to share about student teaching or teaching in general?”
Whew! That’s a big one, Robin. I think I can help you out in a couple of short tips, but that actually sounds like an episode of Everyday Art Room, if I’m going to be honest, but let me see if I can help you out. I just jotted down a couple of my tips, words of advice that I would give somebody, who’s venturing into their first year of teaching or student teaching. Boy, that question brought back a lot of memories.
First of all, biggest and most important, is please be on time or, better yet, be early. I remember when I was student teaching, I always made sure to get there before my cooperating teacher. I was overwhelmed, anxious, had a lot of things that I felt like I needed to do, and just getting there early and actually having a little bit of time to myself was wonderful. I have had cooperating teachers in my room, not my student teachers but visitors to my art room, who’ve been late before, who’ve been no-call no-shows, and I can tell you, before I even met that person, I had already formed an opinion of them. Leave your house early. Give yourself plenty of time. Make sure everything’s ready to go, so you’re not feeling scattered and rushed and flustered, and quite possibly could get into a car accident on your way. That is my biggest, number one tip: Be on time.
Of course, another tip I would offer is to get out and meet the other teachers. Believe it or not, I’m actually kind of shy. I don’t enjoy meeting people that I don’t know. It kind of freaks me out. It’s something that I work on all the time. My advice would be that you need to do that, though. You need to get out of your art room and meet other people. Introduce yourself, share ideas, collaborate. That being said, don’t be a doormat, meaning don’t open up your art room to art supply giveaway. Remember, you are not a craft store, and teachers need to know that, as well, and you don’t want to be taken advantage of. Next thing you know, you’re making posters for everybody on the planet. You need to make sure that, despite getting out and making new friends, you aren’t taken advantage of, and neither is your art room.
That was a great question, Robin, and, like I said, one that I think I need to explore more in an upcoming podcast. Do you have a question for the mailbag? Please feel free to email me at everydayartroom@theartofed.com. I would love to hear from you.
It’s been a blast sharing with you guys cleanup. Who knew cleanup could be a blast, but why not make it that way? Remember, by a blast, I don’t mean that it needs to be chaotic. Let’s talk about it. Remember, you can make your cleanup fast by doing a call and response at the beginning of class. That way all of the kids understand all of your expectations for cleanup.
You can also make it chaos free. Two minutes before cleanup, have your students point out where they’re going to place everything. That way, when it’s time for cleanup, nobody’s asking questions. Everybody knows what to do.
Also, think about your traffic flow. You want to make sure that your cleanup makes sense, so all of your kids are moving in a rhythm and not scattered all over the place, walking from one end of your room to the other. Think about your flow.
Then, last but not least, make it fun. Why not? Give my cleanup contest game a try. I would love to hear from you if you do. Remember, it’s easy, but to win, they have to clean up at level zero. Everybody is responsible for their own area, and, when they’re finished, they help buddies tidy their table, standing behind their pushed in chair with a zero in the air, and then pick a person to decide who the winners of the cleanup contest are. Of course, tie in what already works for you. Don’t throw that out the window. You guys, have an awesome time teaching art. This is Cassie Stephens, and this is Everyday Art Room.


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Monday, September 4, 2017

Everyday Art Room, Episode 4

Are y'all listening to my podcast Everyday Art Room? I am loving sharing with you! Any excuse to talk at length about art teacherin' is a good time, says me. If you are listening, thank you! You can find it on iTunes or right here. New episodes drop every Thursday...which I failed to mention to y'all on Thursday. Oops, my bad.

By the way, in case you didn't know, I host a Facebook LIVE every Wednesday at 8pm CST...you'll need to like/follow me here to stay tuned. We have a great community of (mostly) art teachers that join our chat (nearly 200 every week!). We share our art room happenings, seek advice, offer kind words and join forces to make art teacherin' so much better, easier and funner. YES, that's a word. If you've not joined the fun, please do. If you are more of an IG person, I go live there as well. Frightening, I know. 

Without further ado, here's the transcript from Everyday Art Room, Episode 4!
I’m curious to know if you’ve had one yet. I have had several and each one has been more terrifying than the last. They cause me to wake up with night sweats and I’m deathly afraid to try to fall back asleep for fear I have another one. Can you guess what I’m talking about? The back to school nightmare. Is this something that all of us experience? Please tell me I am not alone. My hands are actually sweating just talking to you about my back to school nightmares. They look almost exactly the same every single time. If they made a horror movie based on my back to school nightmare, it would probably outdo Saw as far as scariness goes. In fact, that’s pretty much where it looks like my nightmare plays out. Imagine this, yes, I’m going to talk to you about my dreams.
Let’s hold hands and soul gaze, shall we? It goes a little like this. I’m in what looks like an abandoned auditorium with about 40 to 50, maybe 60 kids. I don’t know where the teachers are. It also appears there’s no heat and maybe a flickering of the lights. You know, true horror movie style. I’m standing there and I cannot get their attention, their focus or their respect to save my life. It usually is me saying, “Hey, guys. Hey, guys. Hey, guys,” getting progressively louder and more anxious without a single child even putting their eyes my way. It’s usually about that time when the zombie administrator starts to lurk in, getting ready to do their observations of course. Not just any observation, but the one that’s going to set the tone for the rest of your art teaching life.
It’s usually then that I wake up from the nightmare. I know. It only happens at that certain time of year, late July, early August when I’ve got teaching on the brain. I think you guys can all relate to my back to school nightmare. This is Everyday Art Room and I’m Cassie Stephens. What is the one thing that we all have in that back to school nightmare or I should say what is the one thing we don’t have in those back to school nightmares? Classroom management. Every time I have one of those nightmares it’s always because I have zero control and classroom management. I think that kind of nightmare speaks volumes because without classroom management and without control, you cannot teach. You most definitely cannot enjoy teaching.
Even though it might appear as though you’re out of control, students are having the very best time of their lives, they’re not. They’re getting gipped out of a quality art education. Today we are going to address classroom management. Now in the last couple of episodes we’ve chatted about routines and rules and consequences. You’ve heard me say over and over again that you need to think about the three S’s, your set up, your situation, and your students before you start thinking about your approach to teaching art in your art room. I’m going to throw another S your way and I feel like this S is super important, self.
You need to think before establishing anything in your room about yourself and what your new established routines, rules and consequences will look like coming from you. For example, I think it’s important to know yourself. I know myself well enough as a teacher after almost 20 years of teaching art to know that I am not consistent. That is something that I struggle with in my everyday life, but especially in my art room. I also know that being consistent is vital in an art room and it’s something that your students need and crave.
Knowing that I’m not consistent means that when I’m establishing routines, rules, consequences and my classroom management plan, I can’t have a lot of things happening, meaning I can’t designate certain jobs to certain students or certain tables because I know that I’m not consistent enough to stick with that and to continuously remind students to do those jobs. I think that whenever you are listening to another art teacher speak like me or you visit another teacher or art teacher’s room, you might see some fabulous things happening, but also take it with that S grain of salt of self, will this work for you? Yourself? That being said, let’s talk about classroom management and today I thought I would share with you my three C’s of classroom management.
These three C’s are important no matter what your set up, your situation, your students and yourself. Here it goes. Calm, consistent and chaos free. Those are my three C’s of classroom management. Let’s talk about those three C’s. Let’s start off with calm because that is something that sometimes I struggle with. When you consume as much coffee as I do, calm is not something that comes easily, but it’s very important to your classroom management. We were talking in the last podcast about when you’re delivering your consequences to always do so in a consistent way, meaning using the same verbiage, and in a calm voice. Never raising your voice, never let your irritation at a behavior show is vital to having your students respond positively to you.
Now I know what you’re thinking. We want art class to be fun and exciting and joyous. Calm sometimes gets a bad rap for being the opposite of that. Take it from me. I can be pretty silly and pretty animated, but it surprises folks I think sometimes when they come to visit my art room, they’ll pull me aside and say, “You’re so calm.” It’s really amazing considering the amount of coffee that I take in, but here’s the reason why. Your students when they’re sitting in front of you or creating with you, imagine them being like little mirrors. They’re reflecting you. They’re reflecting your behavior. If you’re silly, they’re silly, which is great if they’re a good group of students that understand when to turn the silly off, which as you know is a little bit sometimes of a struggle.
If you’re calm and consistent, you might find that your students are the same. Now I know what you’re thinking. “Not always, Cassie. I mean sometimes my students come to my art room and they are a wild bunch.” Oh you all, trust me. Mine too. My students come to me from PE where they’ve just had a lot of fun and great activity. Sometimes no matter how calm I am, my little mirrors are broken and I need to fix them. There are some ways that you can bring a lot of calmness and soothing to your students, which will make your classroom management a lot easier and a lot more smooth for you to teach. Let me share my favorite one. This is called palming.
Imagine you have your students seated with you in your room whether that be at their tables or if you’re like me, they come in and they sit on the floor. If I notice that my little mirrors are not being as calm as I’m trying to be, then I know that I need to bring them to an activity called palming. Why don’t you do it with me right now and I’ll help you walk through palming. Take both of your hands and put them thumbs together so that the palms of your hands are facing away from you. Now, and I’m doing this with my students as well, what I’m describing to you is exactly how I would say this to my students. Now bring both of your hands together slowly and calmly as if you are clapping, but do not clap. Now slowly start to rub your hands up and down.
They should start to feel a little bit warm because of friction. When I say two, rub your hands together just a little bit faster so that that friction creates more heat. When I say three, stop rubbing your hands together and place the palms of your hands that are now nice and warm over your eyes and keep them there until you hear me say three again. Three. It’s at this point where your students are sitting with our little warm hands on their eyes. While they’re sitting this way, I deliver my message to them. I say to them the behavior that I’m going to expect when they take their hands off their eyes, what we’re going to be talking about when they take their hands off their eyes and how I want them to take their hands off their eyes.
I simply say, “When I say three, please put your hands calmly in your lap. Three.” When my students are finished calming, there is a huge difference in their behavior. It’s like they just finished meditating. They’re a lot more calm and it’s a lot easier for you to progress with your lesson. Another thing you can try instead of calming, which would be the opposite. Sometimes I’ve noticed that if my students are really a ball of energy, it’s difficult to do palming with them. They’re a little bit too hyped up. For that reason, well, sometimes I say, “You just got to ride that wave.” I’ll have them walk in and we’ll do a little controlled dance activity shall we say. I have them repeat after me. I always have my students repeat after me.
My signal to them when I want them to repeat after me is me to simply clear my throat like this, ahem. They all do the same and then they also know that anything I say or do as far as what action I do they will do the same. It’s at that point that I will say, “Let’s dance,” and they all say, “Let’s dance,” and I’ll show them a short movement of my body like let’s do the twist and I do the twist and they’ll follow suit. We do this for maybe two minutes where I’m doing just silly little dance moves or hand jives or anything I can think of just to help them get the giggles and the wiggles out. When we do the last one, we sit down. It’s usually at that point that they’re pretty calm.
They’ve worked those wiggles out, but if you noticed that they haven’t and they’re still a little giggly and wiggly, then you might want to try palming, but all that to say keeping your room calm will really help with your classroom management. I have noticed that if I start out on a calm note at the beginning of the school year and even at the beginning of the class period, I can still switch to silly, but I can bring it back down to calm a lot easier if that kind of tone has been established during the first few weeks and months of the school year. Now the second thing we talked about which I admitted I’m pretty miserable at is consistency.
Consistency is definitely not my strong suit, but it is vital to teaching and knowing that I keep such things as class jobs and rewards systems super duper simple. I cannot stick with sticker charts or having designated seats, be for designated jobs. That’s just not my bag, especially when I have 30-minute art classes. Those kind of things are very difficult for me to be consistent with. However, consistency is extremely vital and I build it into my routines. In the very first podcast, I chatted with you about my eight routines that I establish at the beginning of the school year. I am very consistent with those routines and my students know that. Being calm and consistent is extremely important with your classroom management.
What those two things will do is they will keep your art work chaos free. Now I know sometimes when I hear myself say these things, I sound like I’m sucking all of the fun and life out of my art room, but the flip side of that which I have lived is a cluttery and disastrous mess of an art room. I have noticed that if I’m not consistent and I’m not calm, then my room erupts into chaos and nobody enjoys that. It’s difficult to reign your room back in and make it a fun joyous creative space when there’s clutter everywhere. When there’s clutter everywhere, suddenly the students start appreciating and taking care of the art room and the art supplies.
Keeping your art room chaos free by being consistent and calm is very important to creating that wonderful environment where your students can really flourish and explore. It’s a struggle. I’m not going to lie. Like I said, I’ve been teaching for 20 years and I still have those nightmares that are all based on classroom management. The good and the bad thing about teaching is that you’re always learning. It’s the good because it keeps us constantly growing and engaged in bettering ourselves. The bad is that it feels like we are always learning and always growing and we’re never going to get to that point where we are the master teacher and that’s okay. Think of your art teaching as creating a work of art.
A masterpiece is never finished and trust me, my art room is far from a masterpiece, but with calmness, consistency, hopefully I can keep it chaos free and create a fun environment for my student’s art education.
Tim Bogatz: Hello. This is Tim Bogatz from Art Ed Radio. Thank you for tuning in to the podcast. We appreciate everyone that has listened, left positive comments and left reviews on iTunes. All of those things help us build momentum and build an audience for this great show. Also, check out the podcast on TheArtofEd.com and get signed up for the Everyday Art Room weekly mailing list. Last week I talked to you about Art Ed PRO, the subscription service that provides on demand professional development for art teachers. You can check it out at the TheArtofEd.com/pro. However, I want to tell you that a lot of administrators are supporting the service and a lot of schools have funds to pay for your professional development.
Just ask. You can send your administrator to ArtEdPro.com where they can click on a PRO for Schools to see if it’ll work for your school. It doesn’t hurt to try and who doesn’t want to have control of their own PD? That’s your job in the next week. Make sure your admin checks out Pro for Schools at ArtEdPro.com. Before you do that, let’s go ahead and finish the rest of the show.
Cassie Stephens: Now it’s time to take a little dip into the mailbag. This first question is one I actually get quite a bit. It goes like it is, “Cassie, you make a lot of videos that you share with your students. How do you make your videos? What programs do you use?” I get this question quite a bit. In fact, on my YouTube channel, I even created a video on how to make videos that you can still find, but let me see if I can break it down for you. First of all, I think the misconception is that you need to immediately go out and buy expensive equipment. I’m here to tell you that the phone you have will work just fine to create video lessons for your students. All you have to do, especially if it’s an iPhone, is put the iMovie app on your phone.
If you have an Android phone, I do not have, you’ll have to look into what free app you could put on your phone. Trust me. They’re out there. Put that app on your phone and just film short clips of yourself demonstrating whatever lesson you’re teaching to your students. In iMovie, it’s very easy to edit those clips. I would recommend if you’re really interested to just watch a couple of YouTube videos that will simply show you how to make an iMovie for your students. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be something that will be engaging for your students and easy for them to see and hear. Trust me. Once you’ve done one, you’ll be excited to do more. Your students will absolutely love what a lot of people refer to flipped or filmed lesson.
Here’s another question, “Cassie, I noticed that you wear high heels a lot. How are you able to teach in those all day?” Oh boy. I don’t wear high heels anymore because I got some common sense up in my head. Who wears heels when teaching? I used to and my feet were never happy with me. To be honest, I now wear a lot of Chucks or Converse because they’re flat and I feel like I can actually move a lot more in my art room. I always keep a pair of back up shoes in my room, a pair of little comfy shoes, just in case I am crazy one day and decide to bust out the heels. I know I’ve got my backup shoes on hand. I know that seems so silly, but you know shoes are vital to teaching.
Finding a pair that are going to be comfortable is really important to your lifelong health, not just your day to day. I would say definitely go for comfort and not fashion unlike me. If you have a question for me, please feel free to send it my way. You can email it to everydayartroom@theartofed.com. I have had so much fun chatting with you guys today about classroom management. Here’s hoping we get a little bit more of a handle on classroom management, so we in the very least stop having those horrible back to school nightmares.
We chatted about the three C’s that I think are vital to classroom management, calm, which I know you’re probably surprised to hear that from me since I’m not usually very calm, but I do try especially at the beginning of the year to be that calmness in the art room. Consistency, which I admitted I’m not super great at. Think really hard about what works for you. Knowing that consistency is not my strong suit, I know there are certain routines that other art teachers have success with that I would not and that’s okay. The last one is chaos free.
It’s important to keep your art room clutter free and therefore chaos free and create a beautiful, calm and consistent environment for your students to really flourish as these creative little beings that they are and not turn into the crazy creepy zombie land nightmare that you might have during those summer months. It’s been awesome chatting with you guys. This is Everyday Art Room and I’m Cassie Stephens.
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