Square is where it's at for grid drawing

I've been a HUGE fan of grid drawing my entire career. Starting with my elementary kids I would introduce the concept of using grids to my students often with preprinted grids on cartoon characters as an early finisher activity. 

As students mature in their skills we transfer the responsibility of grid making to them. And you know who doesn't love a grid project? Every student who struggles with reading a ruler. Sure, there are workarounds. I can print the grid on it for them, they could work on gridded paper or worksheets. They can use a light box to trace a pre-drawn grid, we can place a grid on top digitally. When drawing isn't the main skill, like this printmaking lesson that is a great accommodation.

Most of those techniques require a lot of extra preparation from the teacher. They also take away what students need to use this technique again on their own: the ability to execute a grid, consistently on the reference photo and their own paper. Let's face it, if they can't make a good grid, it's not a helpful tool. In this case, the grid becomes a barrier to success.

This year I started using a NO MEASURE grid method. If students can draw a straight line from corner to corner, they don't need to measure a thing. The only limitation to this method are that you must either use a square or make sure the reference photo and the final paper are the same proportion. Both of these steps require no extra effort, time or resources from the teacher.  We tested this new format with a colored pencil leaf drawing. After seeing the boost in confidence for all of my students I decided to create some additional lessons that are ready to go for a sub at a moment's notice. You can find the whole bundle here.

In this resource I include a step by step video demo of not just how to set up the grid, but how to see implied lines in a photo to convert a photo into a line drawing. This is an important step to teach. Not all students can visualize what you are asking them to do. We start with a basic star shape to help them see the lines where there are none.

If you'd like to check out this method, you can download a FREE sample here

Updated Lady Liberty Lesson

I just updated my copper repousse statue of liberty lesson to included a guided drawing page then realized I never published the liberty collage lesson that I did for several years. 

It's always fun to do at the end of the year to use up scraps of paper. I think this project started when inherited a room that had PILES of faded green paper.

For a fun twist you could also have students marble paper for the background for a fun cloudy sunset or you could try the firework painting technique that's all over pinterest.

Here's a link to the original post on the collage project and a link to the lesson plan. 

This is a link to the repousse post and a link to the lesson. The repousse (or copper tooling) is a great activity for summer camps.

I have the guided drawing sheet posted free on my Facebook Page. Go ahead and grab a copy for yourself.

Video Updates

Today is my first Friday of summer vacation.  So I wanted to do something special.

This summer I am trying to update as many resources as I can with video demos. If you're following me on TpT, be sure to check your email today. I just sent a link to a free video just for you! If you aren't following yet, but like getting free stuff periodically, you can click here and look for the star that says follow me.  

Back to School Giveaway

Some of my favorite art teachers are working together to offer an amazing giveaway! Visit my Instagram account to enter for your chance to win.

Black Art In America

While doing some research for my lesson on Mark Bradford, I came across a great resource that I wanted to share. Black Art In America is a website dedicated to documenting, preserving and promoting the contributions of the African American arts community.

It is a platform to share stories, build relationships and educate. There are some great video clips and interviews as well as practical advice for art collectors. I enjoyed this article on 10 Breakthrough Black Artists.

And as things tend to happen...one click led to another and I fell down the instagram rabbit hole.  I knew if I just "liked" and "followed" the names would escape me when planning lessons and wanting to have these naems at my fingertips I quickly filled up a new document. Of course some of the new artists reminded me of old artists, so I added them to my list as well. While not exhaustive, I'm excited and filled with possibilities.

I have a free download of the list here.

What names would you add?

Teach For Justice - A Free Presentation

Like many of you, I have been spending the past week listening and reflecting.

Activism looks different for everyone. My biggest take-away has been the amount of learning I have to do, which is why I was pleased to see Teachers Pay Teachers take the reigns with a FREE presentation called "Teach for Justice: A Conversation with Black Teacher-Authors." It will be held Friday June 19th at 3pm ET, but you need to register for this event.

Submitting work to google classroom

Last week I created a graphic for students to include with my weekly choiceboard to help them (and parents) successfully attach images to the assignment. Many teachers have been sharing their frustration at receiving student work, so I made this a free download direct to your google drive.

This is only the 2nd thing I've tried to post from my googledrive. If it doesn't work for you, please let me know so I can fix it.


Something that has been super helpful for me is being a "student" in another person's class. Our technology coordinator created a classroom that we joined for training a few years ago. I never left that class. So now, I can go in there as a "student" and know what they see and experience. If you have a colleague you could each join the other's for the same.

Fun and games distance learning

As I sit here I can't help thinking about 200 pieces of unglazed pottery that I unloaded from the kiln the week before we shut down. In the grand scheme of things, no big deal. But wondering if I'll see my 5th grade students again to at least pass back the work. It looks like we're a long way from completing "real art" with our students, so I'm trying to focus on what the next stage looks like.


At this point, our district is consolidating efforts to offer a calendar / menu style of offerings for the specials. Some of the choices might be creative brain breaks with things like an art scavenger hunt / eye spy or the circle game. These are things that I may have used traditionally on the last day of class, or for free art day.

While our 3-5 students may have access to technology, student access to internet and art supplies will not be equitable so part of the decision process is whether an activity can be completed with pencil and paper if that's all they have. To that end, I'm looking at things with high engagement, like old school animation devices. Flip books, Roll ups and Thaumatropes. I created a video demo for the roll up idea for those who may have internet access, but there's also a handout that easily explains the idea with pictures.


This was something I offered during STEAM night, but most students only made one item or played with the samples that were available. I think some of the students will really dig in and perhaps step up to a flip book given the extended time they have to work on it.





How are you preparing for distance learning? Is your department working together to share resources or are you on your own? Are you teaching traditional projects, or supplementing with more prompts and activities? I'm thinking more found object sculptures, collages and sidewalk chalk art as the temperature begins to rise.


I put together a FREE sampler of 3 favorite low budget no-prep activities to try. Enjoy!

magnetic photo frames

These 4x6 magnetic photo frames are great for organizing supplies on my metal carts.

I have extra pictures behind the front label, so I can quickly swap things out if needed. I get mine at a local photo store, but you can find similar here.

I have also used them in the past to organize my goals, etc on the whiteboard

(or in this case, ancient green board). More on this system here.

All my favorite art teacher organization hacks are included in this free download.

New Art Teachers Save Your Sanity

This is about the time of year that the facebook groups are alive with newly hired teachers. Excited and maybe a little overwhelmed they are ready for the next phase of their journey. I saw a few posts today and it reminded me to update my art teacher's guide to organization. With my new room (Room #14 in my 14 year teaching career...but who's keeping track?) came new challenges and new opportunities. I'm already excited thinking about how I'll be reinventing that space next year. But in the meantime, please enjoy this free guide!

Here are some of the new features:

Art Gallery Helper Station

Artsonia Binder 

Supply Cart with Magnet Labels

Finally... The Eraser Garage. It's life changing. For real.

If you're a first (or second) year art teacher...this guide specially designed for the questions of new art teachers may be just the thing for you.

Tessellations

My 5th graders did a great job this year with tessellations. I highly recommend the "Introduction to Tessellation" book by Jill Britton and Dale Seymour. It provided a nice framework for my students.

If you'd like to try tessellations with your class, check out my lesson plan. It's a free download on TpT right now.

How to Get Donations For Your Art Class

The past few years I had to question why I was spending so much money on my classrooms and watching students walk in with armfuls of tissues, sanitizer and wipes for their classroom. Finally dawned on me that those teachers get things...because they ASK for things. I decided to try it out for back to school night. I made a little poster and put it in the corner without mentioning it or making a big deal and you know what. Parents went over there, tore down a slip and then asked me exactly what brand and how many I wanted. LIGHTBULB moment! If you could use more...anything I have just the poster for you. Check it out.

Updated Organization

A few years back I had posted a few tips and tricks I had picked up along the way. I updated the list today with some new ideas, photos and routines. One of which is my "class counts" cheat sheet. This is a super simple chart I make in excel with the number of kids in each class, broken down by day and grade level. (The bonus of using excel....it does the math for you!)

I print it out 6 to a page and tape that thing wherever I find myself counting out supplies...especially next to the paper cutter! If you struggle with organization this is a free download on TpT. Enjoy!

Donation Requests

Inspired by the art of ed's donation list, I decided to create my own. What would be on yours?

Bueller?

Attendance is a tricky beast for me in the elementary classroom. For high school, I stood in the hallway with my attendance sheet and checked them off as they entered. In elementary I find I barely make it to the hall before the next class is entering (and let's be real, I don't actually know the young 'uns names until October April.)

Do you call roll or have another trick for managing attendance? Are you required to take attendance? Leave a comment below with your best trick for consistently taking attendance. Or your best rationalization for why you don't. 

iPledge Allegiance to

artsonia!

So excited to be one of the teachers selected to pilot the new iPledge program. One of my schools will receive an iPad mini for students to begin to document their work and share it to our online gallery. So very excited to move this task off of my plate, and onto theirs!  Our school will be a Leader in Me school next year and I'm thinking that students may have the chance to be the gallery curator. Maybe my 5th grade students will rotate through that job and upload for my 1st and 2nd graders. 3rd and up should be easily trained.

Guess who's going to Kindergarten

Well, actually, kindergarten will be coming to me.

Another year, another change. I will be leaving one of my elementary schools and starting at another new school next year. This school has a full-day kindergarten, so the students will have art. My first step to preparing for this big change was to take a closer look at the new visual art standards, specifically the kindergarten performance standards. We have also been informed that after this year, our fifth graders will be coming back to elementary from the middle school, so the following year I will have K-5. I figured while I'm updating my checklists, I'd just start planning everything with the K-5 mindset.

If a free K-5 checklist and condensed at-a-glance printable is helpful to you, feel free to download it over on TpP. There are four different versions with varying degrees of info included. Enjoy!

Elementary Scope and Sequence

This summer I created a scope and sequence document in excel. I used color coding to separate the grade levels and add the project name so that I can see at a glance what I still need to get to.  The other page features a marking period at a glance chart, also coded by grade level. It's available for free download over on Teachers Pay Teachers.
Sneak Peek:

Original post here.