In The Art Room

​There is an on-going debate about the place of holiday crafts/art within the art classroom. Usually I am on the side of making art with soul rather than to be used for short-term decoration. But, honestly, who doesn't like a good crafting session? This gal right here loves me some cute craft making every now and again. So do my students! Especially after a long semester of thoughtful creating and putting on a huge art show. So for the last class before winter break last year, I rolled out a special, one day only, Holiday Pop-Up Centers event!

I gathered together some quick, easy, fun crafts and generated QR codes to the directions. Then I printed each page and placed on a different table in the room along with the materials that they would need. Students (grades 6-8) could choose from any of the activities and they could change activities if they wanted to. I kept it open and flexible. Put on some jazzy holiday jams in the background and it was the perfect send off to winter break. I'll be doing this again this year, most likely changing up some of the activities. 

Here is the download of these pages if you want to print them and have your own Holiday Pop-Up Centers class. Let me know if you try it out in your classroom, and if you have any activities that would make for the perfect pop-up center. Wishing you a smooth transition to the new year! 

For the past 3 years I have started the school year by hosting a TASK Party in each of my classes. My students LOVE it! Every single one of them. Every single time. It is playful, fun, and creative. It gets kids up and moving and making! Which is exactly what I want on my first day back!

A TASK party is a simple concept. Participants select a task randomly out of a box and then they complete the task. Tasks are designed to promote creative thinking so they are not straight forward. The TASK Party originates from Oliver Herring. You can watch this video of his to find out more. 

TASK Parties can involve a fair amount of materials consumed so I always use a large selection of recyclables. About a week before the party, I put an email out to my staff to drop off any recyclables to the art room. I always have enough to go around. I've come to realize that students don't need any fancy materials for the TASK Party, whatever you can gather up will be enough for them. In addition I allow students access to paper scraps, markers, colored pencils, scissors, and yarn. When I've allowed tape in the past, they have grossly over used it and I haven't gotten my order in yet so this year I set up one hot glue gun. It worked out just fine! This is how I ended up organizing my recycled materials for class: 

The list below are my basic expectations that I go over with the students before we begin. TASK Parties are energetic and can get a little chaotic with a lot of students moving around but the kids are always SO engaged that it has never been a problem for me. 

The best rule that I developed was the "Put back once" rule. Meaning any time you pick a task you are allowed to put the task back ONCE and pick another one if you choose. This works so well. It gives the student a chance to change tasks if they really hate the one they pick but it avoids the situation of a student picking tasks endlessly. 

Making tasks is something I allow on a class by class basis. It is a traditional part of the task party to have participants make the tasks that others will pick. However, I found that Middle School kids tend to make tasks that are boy/girl related or designed to embarrass others, which take away from the atmosphere of the party. My classes range from 12-18 students and the amount of tasks that I have prepared are more then enough to keep them busy for an 80 minute time period. 

​Previously I've had them put the tasks in a separate box when they are finished but this year they placed them back in the same box and it worked out great. (If they picked a task they already completed, they just picked again). 

That's really all there is to it! I let students know that when they finish a task they can choose to keep what they have made or take it back apart and put it back in the materials. Some artists go through many tasks in the part and others spend the entire time on one task. Don't try and control it, as long as they are creating I'm happy. For me, the TASK parties are about CREATING without fear and having FUN! Below are some of the creations from the TASK Parties this year. 

​As all TAB art teachers do, I am constantly thinking about the organization of the art studio and supplies. My room has a lot of challenges but it also some great things going for it. As we are starting off a new school year I wanted to try out a fresh idea: Class Art Kits.

The idea evolved from frustrations of un-cared for supplies from last year. Specifically the drawing pens - which everyone LOVES - would go missing every class. The erasers were used as frustration relief and had constant holes stabbed in them before they disappeared all together. The teacher before me ordered a class set of gorgeous drawing pencils but I didn't dare bring them out for fear that they would be disassembled within minutes. It's not that my classes are crazy or the students don't know how to put things away properly, but when we are rushed cleaning up and getting to the next class students take shortcuts. 

Reflecting on those challenges I created these goals:
​- set up routines/expectations that help students be successful
- develop a fool proof way to set clear expectations of desirable supplies
- keep student ownership and responsibility on collecting, using, and putting away supplies
- have a clear way to keep students accountable who are misusing supplies 
- keep supplies separate from the HS students (taught be another teacher - shared classroom)

In comes the Class Art Kit. These are small kits of supplies that I developed. The Art Kits are assigned to each student in each of my classes by number. That student is responsible for the care of the supplies in the kit during their class period. If the next class finds something missing or broken, the previous student will be called in and held accountable. 

In each Art Kit I have placed:
1 Drawing Pencil Set With 12 different pencils
1 Eraser
1 Thick Black Marker
1 0.7 Drawing Pen
1 0.5 Drawing Pen
1 0.2 Drawing Pen
1 0.05 Drawing Pen
1 Pair of Scissors

Other supplies that I am considering adding throughout the year:
Art Knife
Paint Brush Set
​Glue Stick

I also have this written on each Kit:
​Materials break and burnout naturally. If this happens while you are using it bring it to Ms. Blundon for a replacement. It is your responsibility to check your Art Kit at the start of every class to ensure that all the materials are in good condition. If they are not, see Ms. Blundon as soon as possible otherwise you may be held accountable. 

To introduce the Art Kits, I am having each student complete this Google Form Quiz that includes them agreeing to care for and take responsibility of the supplies. 

Each material in the Kit is labeled with the Kit number. I painted the end of each drawing pencil a different color to help quickly tell the difference. It has taken a few weeks of work here and there to prep the whole Kit but I'm hoping that it will be worth it to keep supplies in good shape and teach students more responsibility. Here's hoping! 

For our very first PYP unit in 5th grade this year I wanted to provide students with a foundation of generating ideas that could be referenced back throughout the year. In this unit we focused on Where Do Artists Get Ideas? and explored a range of activities leading to the development of unique, original ideas for their own artwork.  

Our very first class we spent time making a whole class mind map/web showing where ideas come from. Each table discussed it with themselves first and then shared their ideas while I wrote them on the board. This gave us a great jumping off point. 

Then we played one of my favorite idea generating games: Quantity of Quality. The idea is to generate as many ideas as possible without worrying about if they are "good or bad." Each table got a few art books, while flipping through them students stopped at images they found interesting and then translated that image into a short phrase, ie man eating fruit, colorful mountains, mom and baby in tall field. The phrase was written on a small paper and placed in a pile in the center of the table. After about 15 minutes I collected all the papers - or idea cards as we called them - in a paper bag. Each student then drew two cards out of the bag and created an artwork in response. 

​For homework I asked the students to bring in three pictures:
1. An artwork that inspires you
2. A quote that inspires you
3. A photo of something that is your favorite. 

With the photos that students brought in for homework, we arranged them onto a bulletin board in class as our class Inspiration Board. I love that this is 100% student generated and that it fills the room with so much inspiration. 

On day two I played them this quick video as a refresher from what we discussed last week. Video by fellow Art teacher, YouTube channel: Panthers Palette  

The purpose of the Around the Room activities, originally developed by Cynthia Gaub, is to provide students with short exploration of media as an introduction to skills and techniques. I thought this would be a perfect set up to use as a short exploration into various sources of inspiration. I created six different "centers," each with a title and a prompt/task for students to complete. They had access to the basic drawing materials. I asked them to label each page with "Artists get inspiration from . . . " I gave them 25 minutes to complete each center and they did marvelously! Here is the break down for each center:

Prompt: Choose an object out of the box. Look at it carefully. Try to draw it as realistically as you can.
​*Supply center with a box of still-life objects.

Prompt: Choose a card from the pile and create an artwork that expresses that emotion using only lines, shapes, and colors. 
*Supply center with pastels and THESE EMOTIONAL PRINTABLE FLASH CARDS

Prompt: What if your life was a book or a movie? What event would be on the cover or the advertisement poster? Create a book cover or movie poster for your life.

Prompt: Choose a news article that interests you. Create an artwork in response that that article.
*I printed off 10 very short, easy to read, current news articles from Time for Kids. You can find your own or use these

My post-center plan for when the students finish all the activities is to have them choose one of their artworks they made and bring it into a WOW - or finished piece. If finished in time (we will take a few weeks to work on them) the students will present them to the community at their end of unit share day. 

I am blown away with the engagement the students are showing during these centers and the artwork that is resulting from these activities. Their creativity is booming! I'm glad we are taking our time to work through them. Some students have been finishing around 20 minutes so I may shorten the time a bit. Overall I am very happy with how this unit is shaping up and am excited to use this as a launching point for the rest of the year. 

Thanks to inspiration from my time at the Teaching for Artistic Behaviors Summer Institute and the workshops hosted by Cynthia Gaub, I decided to start my middle school students (grades 6-8) off this year with a Draw Around the Room. The intention of this was to provide them time to explore drawing media, some familiar and some less so, in new and playful ways while laying the groundwork for them to feel comfortable experimenting with these media. This was my set-up:

Objective: I can explore and experiment with different drawing tools and techniques to learn more about them and develop my craft.

Warm-Up: (Every class I have a warm-up on the board for the students to start on when they enter) With your table group create a KWL chart for Drawing Media (ie colored pencils, markers, charcoal, pastels, pencils, pens). Fill out the K - what do you know already, and W - what do you want to learn, sections. *I quickly learned that having the students make the chart themselves took too much time so I made a blank template and printed it out for them so they could get right to the heart of the discussion. I've attached this chart below:

Set-Up:​ After explaining the activity, each table collected a medium and accompanying menu. It was important for me to have them do this themselves instead of having it already on the table because I want them to know where to find the media for future classes. 

Media:​ I have six tables in my room so I chose six different media: Drawing Pencils (Set of 12), Markers (variety of thicknesses), Colored Pencils, Pastels (chalk, soft, and oil), Drawing Pens (Set of 5), and Charcoal (vine, pressed, pencil, with erasers).  

Menus: On the menus I included the media name, definition, and some small examples. In addition there were a few questions on each for the students to think about as they were exploring. On the back side of the menus are nine different drawing techniques for the students to try out. I've included the menus here for you to download. One file is the front sides and one file is the back. I never laminate things but I did laminate these to make sure they survived all my classes. The menus and drawing techniques were inspired by Frankie Fisher. 

Task: Students were asked to create one page in their sketchbooks for each medium. It should include the name and definition of the medium and then a variety of experimentations made while exploring that medium. To aid them, each menu had a back side of different drawing techniques for them to try. I encouraged them to consider themselves as explorers and this as their field notebook, reminding them to take note, label marks, and write observations. 

Teacher Take-Aways:​ Starting the year out with play and exploration feels so freeing and . . . right, even if I did have a lot of underlying structure. Some students struggled with the idea of further exploring media that they have used for years, the charcoal and pastels were definitely the most entertaining of all the medias. Overall I feel that the two classes will be very useful in the student artists' development. I am still debating on what to do next. I was considering moving on to a Paint Around the Room but I feel like this Draw Around the Room should have a larger conclusion, perhaps choosing one or more mediums to continue exploring for a week or two. All in all, the year is starting out well and I already see improvements on the choice-based curriculum I have been developing through student engagement and growth.