With the constant transitions and the chaos of a school day, students sometimes come into the art room WOUND UP. In an attempt to combat that, both of us have dedicated a few minutes of the beginning of each art class to help get our students focused and in the right mindset to work hard...
Everyone knows that kindergarten is a completely different ball game than any other grade level. They’ve never been in “real” school before and are learning how to do everything!! Their little minds and bodies can’t handle sitting still for too long. So what do you do when they come to your art class once a...
Being a teacher (especially elementary) we know how much our students thrive on routine! Interestingly enough, I’ve found out I do too and it makes me way more productive in my classroom. When I started student teaching I always had a list of tasks I had to complete to get the room or supplies ready...
In my art room, like I know many others do too, I have a variety of items for students to use independently when they have extra time. I call it Free Art Time. When they finish a project, activity, or a step of a project we’re doing together and have extra time, I let them...
Being the spouse of a teacher isn’t always easy, but being the spouse of an art teacher I’m sure is suuuuper interesting. I decided to ask my husband some questions and put his answers below. Something you need to know is my husband is a bit of a comedian and has a dry sense of...
In no particular order, I thought I would share some of my favorite books about color! There are many, many other books out there about color and so many more on my wish list. But these are books that I actually have in my art classroom and have used! Whether it’s to introduce a concept,...
One of my FAVORITE tips! I saw it somewhere on Instagram years ago and have done it ever since. Tape your marker lids together…no more lost marker lids and then it’s obvious if a marker is missing. Caveat: use strong tape and smaller hands might have trouble until they’ve been used often (1-2 weeks of...
Have you heard?? We are so excited to be starting monthly meetings with art teachers who NEED a community. We’ve been there…you meet with other specials area teachers, classroom teachers, different grade levels and there’s…well…little you have in common to talk about. It makes it difficult to bounce ideas off of someone or collaborate on...
Unpopular opinion: I don’t like to have assigned jobs in my classroom. I know many teachers like to have some sort of job chart, table jobs, or assigned jobs to students but I’ve done some of those things and I just find it easier to not have them. I also prefer it that way. Let...