And the winners are...

In case anyone was curious about the results of our Cake Contest, here are the winners from each school!

Most Delicious/Appetizing:

Best Birthday Cake:

Most Wedding-Worthy:

Coolest Color Combinations:

Most Creative:

The winners received cupcakes from a local cafe/bakery. I got one (duh) and saved it for the next day--an incredible and rare feat for yours truly. A hot cup of coffee and a delicious cupcake was the perfect way to end a busy school day! I highly recommend it.

Let them eat MORE cake!

I wonder if Wayne Thiebaud knows just how inspirational his work is? My blog stats skyrocketed with this week's earlier post that showcased some of my kiddos' delicious projects! And the buzz all over school is "those awesome cakes in the hallway." Thank you, fifth graders, for makin' me look so good! ;-)

And guess what? I have more cakes to share (this time from my other building)!

FYI, you can find the original post (along with some Thiebaud resources) here, and the first batch of projects here.

Have a sweet weekend, everyone!

Let them eat cake!

Oh ma goodness, things are CRAZY right now! Anyone else feeling totally overwhelmed by March despite being just four days in? I can't believe the amount of grading, displaying, organizing, planning, and everything-ing I have to accomplish this week. And I'm not even running my own YAM extravaganza like Mrs. Impey is (girl, how are you doing it all!?)... I'm gonna YAM it up toward the month's end. BUT STILL. Does the "in like a lion" thing apply to teachers' work loads? I'm thinking yes. Hopefully "out like a lamb" applies, too!

Anyway, here are some of my fifth graders' finished Wayne Thiebaud-inspired desserts!

 

I'm hanging all cakes in the hallway without labeling them with student names, but instead assigning each cake a number (hence the little white rectangles in some of the pictures). This week, the teachers will vote on their faves! The kids are very excited about this--it's "Next Great Baker: Dillsburg!" I whipped up a little voting card for all teachers to vote in five categories.

The winners get gourmet cupcakes from a local bakery. (Obviously, I get one, too, bah haha.) I'll post results when they're in!

Meanwhile, thank goodness someone brought in a teacher birthday treat today 'cause I'm having serious baked good cravings.

Tasty Thiebauds

 One of my favorite parts of teaching is that I get to learn along with the kids. I first came upon a lesson about Wayne Thiebaud's bold oil paintings of cakes and pies a few years ago, and it remains one of my favorite projects each year. And Thiebaud is alive and well, and still painting (as far as I know)!

http://www.nga.gov/education/classroom/counting_on_art/act_fractions.shtm

I love this guy. Interviews with him are so inspiring and his work never gets old. My kids love this project and gobble up all the learning that goes with the making.

We spend the first part of our initial class talking about Thiebaud (and touching on Pop Art, especially since Andy Warhol is a former resident of semi-nearby Pittsburgh, PA, where I did my student teaching). The kids take the rest of class to sketch, focusing on proper cylinder formation, with those tricky ellipses forming the curvature of the cakes.

On the second day, students transfer their sketches onto 12 x 18" black paper. They have the option to create a tiered cake or take out a slice, though both are optional.

Then comes the coloring, which typically takes us 2 full 45-minute classes to complete. We use oil pastels, which totally rock on the black paper!

 

This cake is movie theater-themed!

At the end of the project, I do some shading and shadowing demos and let the kids do their own thing. I'll post the finished products soon!

It's not a one-of-a-kind project, but I think that putting it on black paper helps to make the cakes stand out. At the start, my fifth graders always question using black paper, but always end up loving it--it's like I know what I'm doing or something. ;-)

If you don't know much about Thiebaud, some resources I've used include:
CBS Sunday MorningThiebaud - a great video to show the kids, though I do have to black out the part where Thiebaud is speaking in front of the painting of a nude couple!
KQED Spark - another interesting video
Smithsonian.com - chastising me for associating Thiebaud for Pop Art, ha
The National Gallery of Art Classroom

UPDATE: Check out some of our finished products here!