Do you use rubrics for self-assessment with your students? I developed this rubric based on others I had seen online. I wanted to get my students thinking more about their artwork and writing a few sentences in reflection. We…
My third grade students learned about the photography, films, paintings and children’s books by contemporary artist William Wegman. I actually talked to Bill on the phone and had an interview with him, which you can read in this blog post.…
Wow, do I have a treat for you today! I had the amazing opportunity to talk with American artist William Wegman on the phone. Bill is well known for his photographs of Weimaraner dogs, dressed in all sorts of costumes…
Like many other art teachers around the world, my students participated in International Dot Day. The students dressed up in polka dots, we watched the story of The Dot and sang along to The Dot song. If you have not…
We started the day by reading the book The Day the Crayons Quit (Amazon Affiliate link used, goes to help pay for the costs of this website), which is super funny and adorable. Then, they traced a crayon template and…
I hope you are enjoying your first few weeks back to school! Here is a Reach for the Stars bulletin board my students made as their first art projects. The tape letters were made by 1st graders. I don’t know…
Don’t you just hate when your ribbons get into a big tangly mess? If I ever let a class of kids loose in a box of ribbon, this is what happens: I figured out a way to store ribbon for…
I’m still catching up on sharing projects from last year! This is an easy lesson to teach kindergarteners about cool colors vs. warm colors. First, show the kids how to trace their hands, while leaving space in between for a…
Are you looking for some new contemporary artists to teach your students about? On the Facebook Art Teachers group, members suggested LOTS of contemporary artists that they teach their students. These are now all compiled into ONE HUGE LIST on…
GUYS! I am SO EXCITED! Our new addition is complete and the physical space of our school has doubled. It is so nice to not have to push your way through the halls. It’s like there’s breathing room now. We…
Welcome back to school! Are you ready? We start our staff meetings tomorrow and then the kids come on Wednesday! With the new school year starting, I thought I would highlight some old posts that might be helpful to you.…
Painting on cloth gives such nice, soft colors and is a challenging change from painting on paper. We tied our lesson into African Korhogo cloth painting and you can read about this project in previous posts here. We used unbleached…
Many of you have probably know I have a 4 1/2 year old daughter. If you are friends with me on Instagram you have seen pics of her. I LOVE that she loves art. She has a creative spark to…
These gorgeous radial designs were made by fifth and sixth graders by using their name. You can see all the steps to make these in a previous blog post. The only difference is that now we use light tables (or…
Learn shading! Practice drawing cubes, spheres and more. Add dimension and depth to your drawings! All this can be achieved with SECRET CITY DRAWINGS. Check out this awesome video. The kids practice drawing all these forms and then stack them…