The Gingerbread Teacher

I am so excited to announce that I have just finished my first children's storybook and it is now available on Amazon.ca and Teachers Pay Teachers!

The Gingerbread Teacher is the story of a group of children who come to school one day to find their beloved teacher missing.  They soon take matters into their own hands and decide to bake their own gingerbread teacher.

The Gingerbread Teacher is a great book to use with a gingerbread thematic teaching unit, or just a great story to read to children!

Don't miss the bonus at the end of the book where I teach you the steps to draw the gingerbread teacher:

I will also be available beginning in the fall to come to your school to read to the students and teach your class how to draw the gingerbread teacher.  To book a session, please email me!

tmartinspady@gmail.com

To order your own copy of the gingerbread teacher, go to:

Amazon.com

Teachers Pay Teachers

Disney Carrot!

Today I did some free drawing with my TED (Today Everyone Draws!) classes.  I was a little worried that the students might use the "free drawing" time as a "free for all!"  Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised.

I told them that they would be doing some free drawing, but that I would be giving them a challenge to complete.  The title of the challenge was The Map to Anywhere.  I showed the students examples of maps that I found on the internet and in books that people had drawn.  I picked maps that had lots of pictures drawn on them so that I was emphasizing how the map they were making was a piece of art.

Finally, I showed them the example that I had made for class.  It was called Disney Carrot.  The idea came from my daughter, who loves bunnies.  When she was about 3 years old, she had this idea that Disneyland would be so much better if it was all about a bunny instead of a mouse.  She created a whole imaginary land called Disney Carrot and talked about it all the time.  I decided to make her a map of Disney Carrot and this is what it looked like:

The students then created their own Maps to Anywhere.  I told them that they could do anything they wanted -- treasure maps, maps of places they'd visited, maps of their homes...anything.  But I also emphasized that their maps would be so detailed that I would be able to look at them and they could tell me everything I needed to know about the place I was visiting on their map.  I was amazed at all the different things they did!  Some great examples were:

• maps of their favourite video games (a really big hit with the boys)
• maps of places they wish they could visit
• two kids in separate classes did maps of the inside of their minds
• on their own, some of the students pushed their papers together to make one big map that was joined together
• maps of favourite ski hills
• Candyland, Disney Cucumber, Unicornopolis
• maps to buried treasure

I had a great time walking around and discussing the maps with the students.  It turned out to be one of my favourite lessons!

I hope you will try it and let me know how it goes!

Drawing the Fairy Tales - Now available!

It's finally finished!

I have just completed the final details for my fourth book, Tamara Martin Spady the Art Lady - Drawing the Fairy Tales.  It is being printed as we speak!

However, if you would like to purchase a digital copy, please visit my store at Teachers Pay Teachers at:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Tamara-Martin-Spady-The-Art-Lady

Here is a little freebie to get your started!  Have fun drawing the Little Mermaid:

Drawing the Words and Make It Your Own - Now Available on Teachers Pay Teachers

Finally, finally!  I have been able to scan two of my books, Tamara Martin Spady - Drawing the Words and Tamara Martin Spady the Art Lady - Make It Your Own, and have made them available on Teachers Pay Teachers.  Please visit my store at:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Tamara-Martin-Spady-The-Art-Lady

Coming Soon to Teachers Pay Teachers!

Okay, okay!  Finally, I am going to have the time to upload my books and make them available through Teachers Pay Teachers as e-books!  For right now, I have uploaded a free step by step drawing of a Christmas elf.  Here it is:

You can also find it on the Teachers Pay Teachers website and print it out there!

Merry Christmas!

Despicable Me!

This week we are going to draw some Minions from the move, Despicable Me.  At first, I thought I'd just have the Division One kids draw the Minions, but when I looked through their suggestion basket with things they were interested in drawing, I found that so many kids wanted to learn to draw a Minion, so the whole school will do this lesson in TED!

If you'd like to draw a Minion, here are the steps:

After we draw our Minions, we are going to make them doing something that reflects our own Minion personality.  Since I am a huge Disney fan, of course I chose to make my Minion with a Mickey Mouse suit!

Scaredy Squirrel

So many of our students love Scaredy Squirrel by Melanie Watt.  We decided to do a tribute to Scaredy Squirrel in our TED class last week.  The students were taught to draw Scaredy in "Melanie Watt" style and then added their own details to make him their own.

Here are the steps to draw Scaredy Squirrel: