When the school year starts to roll around and the thought of having hundreds of students entering your room creeps in, you want to make that first week as easy as possible (especially if you don’t have every single thing ready to go). One thing that we have found that helps cut down on the stress of the start of the school year is doing a school wide collaborative! You can make this as simple or as elaborate as you want or adjust it depending on the grade levels you teach. It’s a fun way to bring everyone together to start the school year and have EVERYONE’S art on display! Below are a few ideas of things we’ve done in the past that have been a big hit in our buildings.
Monochrome self portraits
This one is super low prep and enjoyable for students of all levels. Give students a small piece of paper (3×5” or 4×6” works well). Let them pick one (maybe two if absolutely necessary) color(s) and make their own version of a self portrait. I’ve set out different materials too. For example, if they use a blue marker, the whole thing isn’t done in blue marker. They have some blue crayons and colored pencils they can use as well. Then I organize them in rainbow order to make it eye-catching in my main display case. Bonus: I left this up almost the entire year because people enjoyed it so much.
School name
Similar to the self portraits, give students a 3×3” square paper and let them make a design or abstract artwork and assemble them together to spell out the school name or mascot. I actually laminated mine and hang it up at the beginning of each year. Students love seeing something they may a few years ago.
Shape or design made with abstract pieces
This one took a little more work on my part when the students were finished, but it turned out amazing. I let my students pick different sized strips of white paper and use our school colors to make it look however they wanted. I then assembled this to represent our mascot. Another one that goes in my rotation to hang in the hallway at the beginning of the year.
Puzzle pieces
If you want to simplify that one even more, there are a lot of coloring sheets that you can Google that students get a fraction of a picture and then they can help you assemble before you hang it up. So easy!
Coffee filters
Most of us have probably had students color on a coffee filter and used different materials to make the marker bleed, but these are absolutely beautiful to put in a large shape or clusters. I have my kindergarten students do this as a project each year and they look amazing.
Collaborative posters
Last but not least, collaborative posters. There are so many possibilities for this; draw something they are best at drawing, something they’re excited for this school year, trace their hand, draw flowers. The choices are endless! Or maybe you draw some simple stuff on the poster with an ink dauber and they just color it! Again…this gives you a lot of freedom to accomplish things when the school year is starting.
We would love to hear about some collaborative projects you’ve done with your students or plan to do! Let us know in the comments!
Keep blending,
Hayley
PS…full disclosure: I have no idea what I am doing this year for my collaborative ha!