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Saturday, February 3, 2024

Free Art History Bell Ringers

 


If you've been following me for more than a minute, you know I'm a huge fan of sneaking art history into my classes in 5 minute chunks. Have you been wondering what that looks like? Now's your chance to "try before you buy." I just shared 4 FREE weeks of bell ringers for black history month. 


If you need more info on how I use these in my classroom, you can check out the original post with all the details here.


Friday, February 2, 2024

Paint Organization and Distribution Tips

 Here are some quick tips to make paint distribution and storage easier in your high school art class. This system has worked for me in a 41 minute period setting and a 78 minute block setting. For reference, this is a small classroom (no walk in closet) and another teacher uses my room during another block as well.

Option 1: Individual palettes. I have a shelf for students to keep their palettes on. Assigning a numbered spot let's them know that I know who's being messy. I can fit 20 of the 7" round palettes with wells on each shelf. 

Pro: cuts down on waste. Easy to save mixed colors

Con: have to mist with water and wrap palette daily. 



Option 2: Cups of paint. I have a tin of each primary, secondary and neutral color. Each pair of students gets 1 cup of each color to share. They access it from a communal table. At end of class they return the cup. I mist all tins with water and put the lid on. You can also add a wet sponge to keep paints moist over a long weekend. For my upper levels I have two kids share one of these tins for the duration of the project.


Pro: These stack neatly and take up less room than traditional palettes.


You could also use cheap dollar store pencil cases


Con: Students will need palette paper, you need to buy and replace the cups or trim the palette paper to fit the size of the box.

Tip: I keep the wax / palette paper in a readily accessible location for quick self service.


For paintbrushes you can try the over the door shoe hanger. I number each kit and each pouch space. 
At the end of class I can scan quickly to see who's missing. Also, I don't have enough for every student. Student #5 in my first class shares with Student #5 in my second class. I tell them to let me know if the brush is dirty at the beginning of class. Then I make a note to speak to that student the next day. It only takes 1 or 2 kids for them to realize that they can't get away with not washing brushes.
Pro: kids check brushes instead of you, saving time.
Con: brushes not cleaned last period of day will be gross the next day
Fun Fact: sometimes students tell on themselves. I had a kid show me a horrible brush. When I looked to see who shared the set, the student in the other class was absent. So he was the last to use (and not clean) the brushes.






Saturday, January 27, 2024

Love is in the air






One of the largest differences between teaching elementary and high school is the dominance of seasonal art at the elementary level. I frequently hear the kids complain that we don't do anything "special" at this level for holidays. This year I may try slipping in some seasonal-ish work with my older students and see how it's received. It would be interesting to simply include some love themed works with my samples but not necessarily pitch them as "valentine" projects and see if the kids run with it. When I look through my curriculum there are already many assignments that could fit the bill. 

First up we have the composite shape lesson. This is a budget friendly lesson that can be completed with ball point pen on any type of paper. I normally give my students free reign to use idioms, oxymorons and metaphors to create a visual pun. With a little tweaking, the shapes or puns could be love themed. Here are two examples:

"Sweetheart"



"Change of Heart"


This next lesson is already a favorite because it checks so many boxes. Color theory, paintbrush practice and control. Symbolism. Abstraction. Students normally pick a lyric from a song. Simple enough to change it to be a love song.



This lesson was done with my 5th grade students and is a great one for middle school. Another low budget option. This was an old dictionary that was sitting on my shelf for ages. Students illustrate a quote on top. A great intro to design concepts, symbolism, calligraphy and/or typography.



And of course the pop art word sculpture, which is always a crowd pleaser with my art 1 students. What if they redesigned the Robert Indiana Sculpture instead?




What would you add to the list? Could you see your students having an interest in holiday / seasonal themed work?


Sunday, January 14, 2024

Elementary Art Winter Lesson Round Up

I'm not sure why the month of January seems to have 300 days, but if you're feeling the post holiday slump, here are some of my favorite winter themed elementary art lessons.

 My K-5 budget at one of the four schools I taught was exceptionally low, so I intentionally included lots of low budget options like collage and marker printing to help you stretch your supply budget. Beneath each image is a link to the original blog posts with more photos, samples and details.


Grade recommendations:



Clay snowmen: Grades 1-2
Read the original post with more photos and info here.

Original post with fun "snowman charades" activity here


Original post with more details here

Original post for this lesson here



The original post and book recommendation are here.


Arcimboldo Snowmen: all grades
Original post here

Original post can be found here

Original post for this lesson here.



Original post can be found here.

If your New Year’s Resolution was “working contract hours” you can snag these from my TpT shop and get back to Netflix over this long holiday weekend!

Sunday, January 7, 2024

Linocut


One of the most challenging concepts for teaching printmaking to students is getting them to understand what prints and what does not. In the past I've done some activities with notan design and positive negative space drawings. What I found is they still were unclear on what to carve and what to leave alone.

This year I made a sample plate with 4 examples of the same shape and printed it in front of the students and passed it around. It was very helpful and during the cutting processes multiple students asked to see the sample plate to confirm their choices.


We talked about how their sketch (usually a line drawing) would be the hardest thing to carve because there is so little material that stays raised up.



They seemed to grasp the concept a bit better. Our theme was nature. They could choose a plant or animal and were encouraged to switch ink and paper colors. I had one student finish early and do a variation on a reduction print by recarving more material out and printing a second color.





If you need some help with your printmaking lesson, this includes 10+ minutes of narrated demonstration. Drop your questions in the comments and I'd be happy to help.




Tuesday, July 25, 2023

2023 2024 Art Teacher Planner

Evolution of an art teacher plan book (left to right)

When I was teaching in 3 elementary buildings per week it didn't make sense to carry a plan book back and forth between buildings. During those 8 years, I kept a digital planbook in excel. It was really just a snapshot of what we would do each day. I had a tab for each school so I could plan from anywhere. I printed out my formal lesson plans and left those on the desk for subs just in case.

Fast forward to 2020. I couldn't wait to be done looking at a screen after remote teaching. I resorted to a plan book that was scraps of paper and sticky notes all over the place. So I went back to a paper planner. 

Over the past several years I have been modifying and tweaking my planbook and upon request making the templates available on TpT. One major change is transitioning away from "block" style to a self dividing layout like this one:



I love the flexibility this offers. If we're in progress on a lesson, I don't need the same amount of space as an intro day. This is also a good visual cut to how crazy the day is going to be and helps me prevent have a day of intros in every class. If there is too much to fit in that column it's going to drain my battery. So sometimes I will switch things up when I see how the different classes are going to align. 

Recently, I have noticed is a need for more "communication logs" to document parent conversations. 


I like to put my Note to Subs on the first page opposite my schedule.  




This year I added a beginning of year checklist. We do many of these things on autopilot but it feels good to check them off!




Year at a glance important dates. I fill this in during the 1st faculty meeting of the year. It's helpful to refer back to this timeline things like standardized testing, etc.







Monthly calendar - I go with M-F only to allow more space. The weekends are mine and don't need to be in my school planner. 




I alternate a notes page with a coloring page (because sometimes those meetings aren't really for art teachers)















Quick place to jot down any supplies that get used up. 
All in one handy spot for ordering at end of year.



The Visual Art Standards quick reference in the back of book as well as an End of Year Checklist. This is new this year, but I found our district checklist had a minimal amount of items that didn't encompass what I really need to do to close out my room for the year.


Here's what it looks like all put together for this year:



What are some must have non-negotiable features in your plan book?



Monday, April 3, 2023

Artwork Matting Hack

It is art show season around here and while matting a pile of artwork I was getting frustrated at how long and repetitive the process is. Because I want to mat work to the best advantage, the paper is not always the same size. Normally I would trace the opening of one mat onto the next before I mount the art to the mat, but that only works if they are the same size. I started thinking, this would be much easier if I just had the corner and used it 4 times.

So. I. Did.

And I'm going to show you how to do it, too!


Choose your desired mat thickness For this example I'm going to go with 1.5"

On your paper cutter, cut a strip of mat board that is 1.5" wide

Now cut that strip into two smaller pieces.

Tape them together into an "L" shape


All of your next steps are the same. Figure out how big your mat board will be (including the extra 1.5 all the way around) and cut that down to size. Now flip it over and put your "L" in each corner and trace a little "L" in pencil. Do this in each corner. 


Now you are ready to cut your mat.

Be sure to label and save the corner with all your matting supplies and you won't have to do this again. Ever!  Another benefit is being able to see how a certain thickness looks with the art before cutting.







Have fun! Happy Art Show Season