here is a view of art projects - by grade level - with learning goals next to them tailored to the lesson we are working on. might look really overwhelming and crammed but it not only helps the kids focus on what the "main goal" is of the lesson...it helps remind me what i need to emphasize during lessons. Great visual reminder for us art teachers!!
kindle my art
adventures of an elementary art teacher
Friday, November 1, 2013
learning goals
phew, it's been awhile since i have posted. just wanted to update a picture of my board that i have in my room sometimes to reference during a lesson. this year in my district we are required to have learning goals and scales posted at all times and introduce them to the students.
here is a view of art projects - by grade level - with learning goals next to them tailored to the lesson we are working on. might look really overwhelming and crammed but it not only helps the kids focus on what the "main goal" is of the lesson...it helps remind me what i need to emphasize during lessons. Great visual reminder for us art teachers!!
here is a view of one of my boards altogether. i have a "coming up" section that the kids LOVE to read when they come to art: it builds curiosity and enthusiasm, it helps link past learning to future learning and it helps me stay organized as well.
here is a view of art projects - by grade level - with learning goals next to them tailored to the lesson we are working on. might look really overwhelming and crammed but it not only helps the kids focus on what the "main goal" is of the lesson...it helps remind me what i need to emphasize during lessons. Great visual reminder for us art teachers!!
Saturday, September 7, 2013
storage in the classroom - tips and tricks for art teachers
let's start with the basics: supplies for "every day" use such as scissors, glue sticks, scraps, etc. i store in color-coded bins. making everything color coded might look "pretty" but it also helps determine where things should be so students don't fight over certain supplies.
scissors organized by color |
sorry for the blurry shot, here are some markers organized by tables, as well. |
the shelves below i usually load up during the year as we use things so i don't have to go digging around for certain things all the time. i like my students to know where things are and to feel at home if they need to find something, within reason. they don't have free access to these shelves unless they are the helper table or have asked for something specifically. but, nonetheless i want them to have everything out in the open.
my shelves look really empty right now. usually there are scrap boxes up there, oil pastels, chalk, pretty much anything we need other than paint.
paint storage is a whole other battle in itself. i'll admit it, my first year i hardly used any tempera paint. i was scared of it, sick of it, thought it was a pain to prep and use. but now i have an easy system that works great and isn't wasteful!!
below is how i store tempera for a certain project. i prep paint like this if i need a lot of colors for specific lessons.
to save on counter space and to have easy access to paint, i use my cart all the time!! if you don't have one try to get an extra table just to have everything ready to go for classes. i usually pour water for the students to start with, just so they know how much to refill with in case they need to change out dirty water, but it depends on the class.
i'm pretty obsessed with color-coding everything. to me, it just looks cleaner and more organized. here are the watercolor refills i keep on hand so i can just pop them out of the trays and pop new ones in. i keep this in a drawer so that kids don't think they can take them when they want. some kids really like to see how this works, i make them a part of helping me change out paints. i know it seems small, but having some kids help seems like a reward to them, and you get a little extra help around the classroom. i love this system because we get to keep the trays and the cases instead of tossing them in the garbage and wasting materials and paint.
paper storage: since i am always going into my cabinets to prep paper and get out what i need, it tends to get disorganized and FAST. here is a trick that i actually used from pinterest! keep colors in small sized (9x12) in a filing cabinet (a filing box with hanging folders would work great, too!!) and it's easy access for you. i LOVE this system. i wish i had extra-wide filing cabinets for the 12x18 papers, but i will work on that...
here is the 1st grade bin. as i continue teaching i'm sure my need for bigger bins will increase but for now these work great! |
hope this helps make your classroom a happy and creative one!
share your tips on classroom organization in the art studio below:
Saturday, August 24, 2013
first few weeks of art - Line Lessons
the first few weeks of art, i try to take things really slow (i teach in 2 schools and you never know the background in art the students have had thus far). no matter what grade it is, i start off with some line lessons and slowly add more elements/principles of art as the year continues as well as some more DBAE aspects to it.
this year in my district we have new learning goals for every subject matter. these goals need to tie into every lesson which might be a little hard to do (anything new is challenging) but once we highlight them for every lesson, it'll become second nature. these goals can also help inspire new lessons and create more meaning for the artwork. we, as teachers, might find the meaning very evident but these goals will help us communicate the significance of the lessons to the students on an even deeper level.
anyway, more about lines...
above is a 1st grade lesson: bug's eye view. students look at pictures of up-close plants to help drive home the concept of them being small bugs and having the world around them be an adventure. we then draw a few lines together: some giant blades of grass then i teach them how to overlap the grass. we fill our page with more plants/grass, trace with sharpie, then color in completely. good way to see where each student is starting from.
i love this lesson! it's so simple but gets a stunning result. 4th grade: radial balance. i used to teach this with watercolors later in the year to 4th graders but this seems so logical to start with. once they get into the rhythm of "drawing a little bit, then rotating, drawing a little bit, then rotating"... they can't stop. it's almost like an organized, meditative doodle.
how we start: with a square sheet of paper (we used 9x9) but you could easily go smaller or bigger...i have students stand up to find the center of their paper (it's easier to see than when they are sitting) they mark the center the best they can with a tiny dot in pencil. i have them practice 3 lines in pencil first until they find the rhythm. once they get that down, if they feel comfortable they can trace over those lines in marker and then continue adding a variety of lines in marker without having to draw them first. i actually had a lot of student draw the whole thing with pencil first, and that is ok. very important!!: have them always keep their less-dominant hand on the paper so they can turn as they draw. that way it keeps every line tightly aligned with the last.
1st grade - bug's eye view |
radial symmetry: 4th graders |
how we start: with a square sheet of paper (we used 9x9) but you could easily go smaller or bigger...i have students stand up to find the center of their paper (it's easier to see than when they are sitting) they mark the center the best they can with a tiny dot in pencil. i have them practice 3 lines in pencil first until they find the rhythm. once they get that down, if they feel comfortable they can trace over those lines in marker and then continue adding a variety of lines in marker without having to draw them first. i actually had a lot of student draw the whole thing with pencil first, and that is ok. very important!!: have them always keep their less-dominant hand on the paper so they can turn as they draw. that way it keeps every line tightly aligned with the last.
5th grade line trees |
5th grade is always tough for me to start the year. i feel like i have so many unique, challenging lessons to do and i want to dive right in but i forget that no matter what age, students need a baseline and a refresher for the year. so here we talked about line, brainstormed together quickly as a review some types of line and did this guided drawing. i don't do guided drawings a lot but i started a new school this year as my travel school so i wanted to assess their abilities. here we did a nature/tree drawing using multiple types of line. some students chose to do funky lines and colors and some chose more simple, realistic compositions. i told them either was fine as long as they were using their tools by the rules and trying their hardest.
Friday, July 26, 2013
preparing the art classroom!
ok, so this post doesn't go into extreme detail about how i store my supplies...that is a WHOLE other beast in itself. i originally wrote this post a few days ago on my galaxy but it refuses to completely save it so, i guess i will start all over!!
students don't go back to school until august 5th but i knew i had WAY too much stuff to get done before meet the teacher, etc. next week so after i received the keys to my classroom, i started hanging stuff.
when i entered my classroom this year, everything had been moved from the floor cleaners coming in and rearranging EVERYTHING. at first i was upset...MORE work to do!!! but then i realized it was a great opportunity for change. so i went with it. it might not be a huge change to outsiders but for my little artists and i, it will hopefully make us even more successful in the art room this year :)
the above picture is right by my desk, this year i am going to use it as my inspiration wall. (last year a giant bookshelf was in the way, that i hardly used). i love getting inspiration from anywhere...movies, pinterest, books, magazines, television, other students' ideas, so i like to make a visual wall of things that keep me motivated and/or inspired.
the ARTIST poster is an idea i stole off of pinterest and added my own expectations to. great visual right above my desk for students to see as a reminder. love how that turned out.
because of all this new-found wall space, i decided to only put up the necessities for my students. above is a poster breaking down mediums we use in the art room. i forget to use the word media/medium a LOT so this is my way of reminding myself as well as reinforcing it to my artists.
above are some more examples of small clusters of vocabulary words we use for individual art processes. i do collage a lot throughout the year so it's great to highlight some words and have a visual reminder of what the kids are doing. sorry some of the pics aren't the best...
here is one of my favorite posters i have made. (i have geometric shapes posted to the left of this on my wall). great visual reminder in bright, eye-catching colors. the font is taken from dafont.com - which i use ALL the time. my amazing co-worker told me about it. wonderful fonts for art teachers to jazz up signs, labels, etc.
Friday, July 5, 2013
bittersweet endings!!
things have been stressful lately!! summer school went by way too fast and now i am finding myself trying to organize my classroom supplies to start the upcoming school. as much as i don't want summer to end, i am really excited to roll up my sleeves and get things rolling in my classroom organization.
saying good-bye to my summer school students is always hard. we grow really close in such a short amount of time. but on the flip-side, my amazing co-worker donated TONS of supplies for the KTA art studio!!! i have SO MUCH paint that i honestly don't know where i'm going to store it...but i guess that is better than not having enough. i do not think i will need to even purchase paint this year, which leaves my budget open to more expensive luxuries that i don't normally get to purchase due to funding.
i will try to relax as much as i can before school starts but it is really hard when i practically have an art store warehouse in my small apartment!!! :)
Monday, May 27, 2013
FALL inspired seasonal projects
seasonal projects - fall
as much as i love to hang on to the nostalgia of summer, i love introducing fall projects to the kids. unfortunately here in phoenix we don't get much exposure to the "seasons" so i like to inspire my kids with images and art from other parts of the country who do experience one of the most wonderful seasons of all: fall! as long as you are tying in a learning goal and the standards into your seasonal lessons to avoid that "art just for art's sake" feel - your imagination is limitless. make these projects meaningful...tie them into previously introduced concepts or segue into a different element of art or essential question...
one source of my autumn inspiration: flagstaff!! i miss the weather changing and the fall trees. can't beat the beautiful scenery! |
Friday, May 24, 2013
life's little surprises!!
life's little surprises
i love when i'm wrong about something. haha, ok not really, but i love when i gather a negative impression of something and then get totally blown away by a positive surprise. this happens a lot: we judge someone or something and then end up LOVING them or enjoying a new adventure.
i used to despise liquid watercolors. they stained my fingers when prepping them, were hard to store, they were hard to pour, i would end up wasting them if i poured too much...they basically looked like glorified food coloring.
but then something magical happened. i was inspired by other blogs when i noticed some of their students' painted having really vivid, bright pigments. i was teaching a paul klee lesson and needed something with an extra pop. i decided to give liquid watercolors a 2nd try since it had been years since i had tried them the first time. this time i poured them into muffin tins and discovered, although not ideal, i could just add a little bit of water to them to reuse when dried. loved them!! although they are still a little bit of a pain to prep/store (they use up my muffin tins that i have set aside for tempera paint sets) they create that extra wow-factor in my students paintings. and if you are excited about something, chances are your students will be, too. needless to say, they LOVED using them. a little something new never hurt anybody!!! :)
i love when i'm wrong about something. haha, ok not really, but i love when i gather a negative impression of something and then get totally blown away by a positive surprise. this happens a lot: we judge someone or something and then end up LOVING them or enjoying a new adventure.
i used to despise liquid watercolors. they stained my fingers when prepping them, were hard to store, they were hard to pour, i would end up wasting them if i poured too much...they basically looked like glorified food coloring.
but then something magical happened. i was inspired by other blogs when i noticed some of their students' painted having really vivid, bright pigments. i was teaching a paul klee lesson and needed something with an extra pop. i decided to give liquid watercolors a 2nd try since it had been years since i had tried them the first time. this time i poured them into muffin tins and discovered, although not ideal, i could just add a little bit of water to them to reuse when dried. loved them!! although they are still a little bit of a pain to prep/store (they use up my muffin tins that i have set aside for tempera paint sets) they create that extra wow-factor in my students paintings. and if you are excited about something, chances are your students will be, too. needless to say, they LOVED using them. a little something new never hurt anybody!!! :)
here is the work-in-progress paul klee castles. lots of shapes, lines, designs, patterns and colors. a little goes a long way with these liquid watercolors! |
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