Step 2: Rock Thoughts- Groups

Once the rocks are in the homeroom, it was time for the students to start working in teams.  Each Homeroom got three rocks, each rock had a team of Artist, Writers and Directors.  I provided a worksheet to help explain the different roles to the teachers.  (Click here to see the whole worksheet)

I also provided a second worksheet to help homerooms sign their classes up into groups.  (click here to see that)

The groups worked well.  The students had a couple of weeks to complete their rocks in these groups.

Step 1: Rock Thoughts- Preparation and Distributing the Rocks

What is Rock thoughts?  How did I get involved?  Please see my previous post...

Step 1:  First thing I needed for the rock project was ROCKS!  I contacted our local gavel pit.  Hassan Sand and Gravel was happy to donate plenty of rocks for our project.

I thought the rocks would be best if they had a base color.  I used house paint to paint the rocks.  It worked well.

I used a Google Doc Spreadsheet to lay out all make a mail merge for mailing labels.  This worked slick!  I made two labels at this time, one for on the bottom of the rocks and one for the pictures of the rocks later.

Then I grouped the rocks into three.  Each homeroom (51 of them) got a little care package of rocks.  The rocks were 3 consecutive numbers.  I also marked what homeroom received what rocks.  This was helpful during turn in time.

That about wraps up the preparation and  distributing of the rocks.  More to follow.

Thoughts on Rocks...

I have just complete (and I say that loosely) an amazing project.  About six months ago I was on Art2.0 Ning and saw an invite to participate in a project called, Rock Thoughts.  After visiting the RockThoughts site, I knew this was perfect for me and my school.

In the next couple of posts I want to bring you through the process of this project.  I'm not saying this is the best way, or only way... just a way:)

Here was my goal, I wanted to get each homeroom to participate.  We have about 51 homerooms with roughly 27 student each.  I then wanted to get the three elementary schools that feed into our middle school involved.  Finally, I wanted to get the community in the action too.  It was a big job but Karla and the Rock Thought staff were very willing to help me through every step of the way.  Steps to follow...

Rock Thought Worksheet

Click Here to to print out the Rock Thought worksheet.

Rock'n the Rocks

This was posted in our last 'Staff Happenings'. It's a news letter for the great things going on in our district.  I was just one of the activities highlighted by the GREAT art teachers of our district.  Check it out....

Rogers Middle School

Middle schoolers are
"Rockin" their thoughts

Art teacher Nichole Hahn and the Rogers Middle School staff and students are collaborating on a large scale project this month called "Rock Thoughts."

According to www.rockthoughts.com, Rock Thoughts is the leading global public art and collaborative story initiative. "Our goal is to help children learn how to develop the skills they need to connect with others and the world around them in a meaningful way," Hahn said.  "We do so through storytelling."

The students are decorating rocks donated by Hassan Sand and Gravel. The students research the Rock Thoughts Web site and create a story about that rock. Each rock has a URL and a code on the bottom, which bring anyone who finds the rock to the story. The finder of the rock is then asked to add onto the story and hide the rock somewhere in the community again.

The middle school students are creating and writing, 200 rock thoughts this month. The rocks will be at Rogers, Otsego and Hassan Elementary schools the middle of this month. Elementary students will be searching out the rocks and continuing the story. These rocks will continue to be hidden throughout our communities.

If you find a "Rock Thought" feel free to participate. For more information about the project, please see Nichole Hahn's blog MiniMatisse.blogspot.com.

Hidden Gnome Drawings

I love garden gnomes!  I thought they would be perfect for my 8th grades final drawing project.  We used the Travelocity gnome as our modle.  The kids drew a gnome in a 'place'.  I asked students to show a horizon line, have foreground, and background.  We also talked a lot about colored pencil technique.  

When finished, I asked the kids to place their drawing on another sheet of paper so the art projects looked like polaroid pictures.  We displayed them as if they were flung across the wall, displaying all the travels of the gnome.

See more adventures of our gnomes at on my flickr site.

I did have a couple of kiddo's finish up early so I asked them to draw a large, paper gnome.  They brought it around to different places in the school and took pictures of it.  The 8th graders really liked that!

Emphasis on the Grid...

I improved a lesson that I had taught earlier this year and wanted to share some of my 'fixes' with you...

First... I dare you to look at this image and not smile:)  It's so darn cute!

One of the major changes I did for this project was bring them to the lab to get their image.  In the past I have asked kids to bring in an image.  Many of them would not bring in any image and some images just didn't work well for this project.  This way I can be there to tell them yes or no.  Also, I taught the 7th grade students to search for a black line image rather to keep it simple, because the main skill here was using a grid... not drawing a complex image.  This helped a ton.

I had kids cut the image out and place it on a uniformed 1 inch grid.  Last time I taught this I had kids measure out a grid and use what ever units worked well for their image.  This time I gave them a pre made grid.  They cut it out, placed it on and drew the lines over the image again.  This created a more consistent class for instruction.

I had the kids make their grid exactly the same as the small grid only 2 inches by 2 inches.  This means they added an 'ABC' line at the top, and a '1, 2 ,3' line on the side.  They later cut this grid off before turning in the project.

Finally, while in the lab the first day I had them research line designs.  This was helpful as well. They were prepared to draw out their whole project when it was time.

Again, I made the concept of this project was the principle of art- Emphasis, and I feel this project works well for that concept.  Please view other student examples on my flickr account. (click here).

UPDATE:  Great suggestion from Jen Carlisle


created a grid using the table feature in windows office and then printed them onto transparencies... It saves so much time and I know that at least one of my students grids will be right. They just lay right over the image. Some students beg to keep theirs and others give them back.