Storybook Art Comes to Life

     I decided to start a blog as a way to reflect on my day of teaching elementary art.  One of my duties at my school as the art teacher is to help decorate for plays and other school related events.  We had a book reading event recently and it fell to me to come up with a way to bring the stories to life.  I was given a list of books that would be read and drew up some sketches of ideas.  One of my first thoughts was to paint a back drop that could be hung up with many of the book's characters.  That didn't work out so I just painted the characters seperate and glued them to cardboard, cut them out and made them able to stand up.

     You may recognize some of the characters from "Where the Wild Things Are" and "Olivia".

     There were a few more from other books but I didn't get pictures of them.  I may go back and get a nice group shot of them all and post it later.  Over all the event was pretty successful.  It was at our local mall and we had tons of kids come for story time.  We set the characters around our designated area.  They were a big hit.  The kids got a kick out of seeing the story characters as the stories were being read.  A lot of them had their pictures taken standing next to the cut outs.

     It was my first time at this kind of event and it was fun.  My wife and 2 year old daughter came by and listened to some stories and got a few books.
     Now that this event is over it's time to focus on the 53 things I have to do to get ready for Reading Fun Night, Math Strategies Night, The Christmas Play, The Fall Art Reception, and who knows what else that I've forgotten, lol.