Art Teacher Hints & Tricks

1) My favorite! I have a huge stack of tracing paper sitting on my desk cut into appx. 3x5" sheets. When a student doesn't understand how to draw something I grab one of those tracing papers, plunk it on top of their drawing & show them what to do. I don't touch their artwork but am able to physically show them what needs to be done.

2) Start the day off with some kind of greeting. I like cheesy ones that starts our day off with a smile, but any kind of "happy to see you" greeting is a good one!

3) BINGO!!! I gave my students a list of vocab words at the beginning of the semester and blank BINGO sheets. They took the vocab list and filled out their BINGO sheets in whatever order they wanted, choosing whatever word they wanted. Everyday at the beginning of class they immediately get out their sheets and when I forget to give them a new word they quickly remind me. I can't believe it took me this long to get them excited about learning new words! I have reviews on Spiral to make sure they are paying attention. Fun way to sneak in that extra learning!

4) Start an Instagram and post pictures of the students! If your district frowns on posting student faces then post their artwork. I didn't even promote mine and had 5 followers after posting just 2 pictures. Students love pictures and they love positive attention and this is a super quick, easy way to give them a pat on the back!

4) It's late & I'll add more tips as I think of them!

Staff ID Cards

My district is pretty tiny. In the 23 years I've worked there we have never had ID cards, never really needed them. Everyone knows everyone, we punch in codes to check out books or eat lunch. So the concept of needing Staff ID cards never really came up. Then suddenly businesses everywhere start offering discounts & free stuff for teachers - you just have to show your staff ID card. Well, everyone likes free & cheap stuff, so I took it upon myself to make us some ID cards (I was under a deadline as McDonalds is offering free breakfast to teachers next weeks!) I thought about putting a barcode or something on them to make them "official" looking, but what good is a meaningless barcode? These ought to do the trick! 

My MS/HS Art Room

For those interested, my MS/HS art room is just as colorful as my intermediate room.  Drawing, painting, ceramics, sculpture, & all kinds of art making go on in here. My graphic classes are in the lab down the hall. That room hasn't gotten a makeover yet - it's brown & boring.

The "Scream" & "Starry Night" shelves are for student storage.

I have a "Mona Wall" full of Mona parodies. The green screen walls are used for all sorts of creative projects

The back corner is my senior bricks, where seniors come paint a brick, marking their passage from high school art into adulthood.

My desk is organized chaos. I have a storeroom behind my desk, which is an incredible blessing.

I teach two other schools via my Polycom. It's super cool & we can see and talk to each other live. As small as my district is, the other two districts are even smaller. The office behind my tv's gets used mainly by students since I no longer use it as an office. Seniors usually take over my office & use it as their own private studio.

3D Printer = Excitement!

Last year my superintendent handed me a grant application for $500 and asked me if I wanted to try for a 3D printer. Of course I said yes! Once I started pricing them I started reconsidering, but then came across the micro printer. As luck would have it the printer & two class packs of ink filament, plus shipping would come to $508. I wrote the grant with the idea of collaborating my Graphic Arts class with one of my intermediate classes to create a game board & pieces based upon what the elementary students were studying in social studies. I was super excited when I got the grant! It came in the mail and despite my best efforts I just could not find the time to get the printer out & figure out how to use it. Then last Friday there was a full moon, it was raining & the students were bouncing off the walls. I went into my classroom, grabbed that 3D printer, handed it to my Graphic Arts students and told them to figure it out. I could not believe how engaged they were! They figured it out & printed a tiny little form. I think we're ready to start working on that game board!

 
 

School Instagram!

I started an Instagram account for my art room, & it is crazy how my students use their crazy mad detective skills to find it and start following it before I even had a chance to advertise it. It doesn't have a lot of artwork on it yet, but the students sure like it when I post their pictures. Since several of them already know about it I guess it's time for me to advertise it. Sooooo, follow me on Instagram & see all the cool stuff my students are doing!
Flinthills Art Room

Fabulous Friday!

I organized our first welcome to school for students at the end of our first full week of school. It was a blast, and something  we plan to repeat throughout the year! Showing students you're happy they are there sure makes teachin more enjoyable!

iPad Table

A few years back I created this iPad Table for my students to create their own iPad "how to draw" videos. The table was based on something I'd seen online, but I chose to make mine out of a cardboard box I had handy. Originally we used it almost daily, but then it moved to a shelf & was forgotten about. Recently my elementary students all received their own iPads, so I pulled my table off the shelf, gave it a fresh spritz of paint with leftover spray paint, & now it's ready for students! I plan on having them create online portfolios of all their work, and I'm sure one of my amazing little artists will come up with something amazing to do with this table that I'd never have dreamed of!

Setting Up my Elementary Art Room

I teach TAB in my Elementary Art Room. Our elementary school houses grades 3-6, which I see each class (one of each) one time a week for 54 minutes. Since I'm in this room for such a short amount of time each day it tends to get overlooked. Well not this year! I decided to go with the theme "Color Wheel", since I already had my "I SPY" wall and the blocks along one wall all painted nice & bright.

Let's just go by center, then I'll post the whole room. 

Drawing Center

My drawing center is red this year (obviously!) I don't have bulletin boards in this room, so I made my own by hot gluing paper to the wall & using bright border. I don't have my procedures & examples up yet, but they're coming! All my supplies for this center are marked with red electrical tape, even the scissors, pencils, glue bottles and Sharpies. This helps keep students from "borrowing" for other centers and not returning them. I'm super excited about the new plastic see-through crayon boxes for the fancy crayons and the new stencils of gears and people. My little engineers and                                                           fashion designers are going to flip!

Collage Center

Green for collage.  Lots of cool scissors, papers, magazines, & sequins - everything a collage artist might want! 

Puppets, Jewelry, & Masks

This is a new center this year. Actually, I'm separating it from collage due to it's popularity, AND to help promote puppetry (hopefully!) I got some cool new shadow puppet books as a door prize at a workshop. They came from ShadowPuppetStories on Etsy (shout out for these cool puppets!) This one isn't as color coded, & the table is in the middle of the room, but all the supplies they'll need are on the bookshelves on the wall that is partially shared with collage. 

Finishing Center 

 There's not much to talk about with the finishing center. This is where the students bring their sculptures to paint after they've done the shake test to make sure they are well constructed. I put this on the opposite side of the room from the sculpture center to keep the students from going back & forth between constructing and painting. Glue doesn't hold well when applied to wet paint. For some reason my students just don't believe me on this! This one is under my color wheel curtains and beside my old art cart. I just can't bring myself to get rid of that old thing - it's so handy & I have a lot of memories tied up in that box on wheels!

 

Sewing Center

The sewing center is always one of my most popular. Felt and fabric scraps allow students to hand sew small stuffed animals and dolls, and to decorate them in a new cool way. For stuffing we use felt scraps as well as stuffing I purchase and old stuffed animals that we re-purpose the insides.                 

Weaving Center

 
The weaving center is another popular center. Weaving on paper plates, handmade looms made out of cardboard, bracelets, wall hangings, you name it they weave it! I have a lot of unbeweavable weavers! They love to take extra yarn and their loom with them and weave at recess, while the teacher is reading to the class, and anytime they can get away with it! I ask parents for donations of any yarn they can spare so I always have more than enough!

Painting Center

Ok, so I don't have sinks. That dirty dark blue bucket is where my students dump their dirty water, refilling it with clean water from the lt.gray buckets. I have watercolors, temera cakes, and washable crayons/markers/colored pencils for drawing & adding water. I keep the drying rack ready for my little artists! I am opening a liquid tempera center, but it's on the easel at the opposite side of the room. I'm going to introduce it and allow 2 students to work there at a time until I see what problems it presents before moving it over to this center. Monitoring a couple students at a time makes new materials easier to manage!

Sculpture Center

So why black you might ask? Well, that's how I feel about it somedays! Just kidding! I didn't want to reuse any colors to keep it simple and I'd used all the other paper colors we had! Sometimes the real answer just isn't all that interesting! Plus I wanted to darken the light coming in just a bit since I project on the opposite wall & it's hard to see with full light. I have 2 hot glue guns and a massive amount of cardboard at this center. The shelving on the far right students are allowed one each. Cut cardboard scraps they can have as much as they need. All other supplies they are allowed 3. If their idea calls for more than 3 they must talk to me first about their idea and get permission. This is not to keep students from creating whatever they want, but to ensure that one student doesn't hot glue a log cabin together with Popsicle sticks, using my entire supply, only to completely abandon it. This left a LOT of hurt feelings amongst the entire studet body as they wanted those precious little wooden sticks and felt that the girl had been wasteful and selfish. It was just a situation I would rather not repeat. So 3 is the magic number! :) It's nice to have a place to recycle all those egg cartons as well - I have my own cake business and I go through a lot of eggs (and cake mixes - hey, I'm not a baker but I can make a super cool looking cake!)

 Sewing Machines

So this is a brand new center. PTO bought me a sewing machine, and I bought two more at a yard sale. I have some future fashion designers and they are going to flip over this new section! I need to find a tall doll for them to create fashion for - unless someone has a great idea for a model? I don't have enough fabric for them to create for themselves, and at this point we just aren't there yet. 

Games/Critical Thinking

Not much to this one. Just odds & ends puzzles and creative games I've accumulated throughout the years. I allow students 2 days at this center maximum. It's for those days when you just aren't really feeling the creative process. 3 students maximum allowed! 

Overall View

 My room is a super odd shape. It's kind of an "L" shape, but it's not square on the far projection wall. Fitting in all these tables has always been a challenge, but somehow I keep figuring out ways to fit one more center in! I love my "I SPY COLOR" wall - I made that to hide that ugly red fire extinguisher. I thought the fire marshal might not like it but he did! It's taking longer than I thought to fill all that space but it's a fun journey!

Crayons!

I am SO excited to see how the students react to these fun recycled crayons! I used a Jello mold & all those yucky crayons that needed pitched. I can't wait to see what artsy goodness the students create with them!

New Luggage

I've been scouring stores, both online and in person, to find some new luggage. What I like is either horribly expensive (I am a teacher after all!), or not quite right. Technically, there is nothing wrong with the suitcases I have, but they are just getting old & dingy looking. Then the other day it hit me: why not paint my luggage! It would be exactly what I want, and even if it's not, well, I was looking to buy new when I started!
Day One: I painted my beloved Denver bronco logo & some patterns. The big hearts are myself (purple) and husband (red). Just the colors I think of when I think of us - nothing too deep there! I think I'm going to love it!

Day Two: I added my favorite KC Royals baseball team logo and my alma mater Wichita State University. The two big hearts are the birthstone colors of my children, and the smaller colored hearts are their spouses' and children's birthstones. Patterns around the edging. Live, Laugh, Love. It's slow going, but I guarantee you won't see another one like mine at the airport!

 

Painting Shoes

I LOVE painting shoes! They are a fun, inexpensive way to enhance any wardrobe. I just finished these commissioned Mother/Daughter shoes for an upcoming baby shower. How cute are they!

I got on a sports kick right before Christmas & made myself some shoes to wear.

Go Royals!

Go Broncos!

Shocker Basketball

My School Spirit!

KC Chiefs (these were a gift - ugh!)