In the Art Room: Sketchbook Covers

Well, better late than never ever, amirite? My students are just now getting rolling on their sketchbooks tho that's no fault of their own. I've been doing sketchbooks with my kids for years now ... and had a pretty fool proof way that worked for me and the kids. But there was always one thing kind of bothering me...that I never had a way for them to add informational pages to their sketchbooks. You know, like an Elements of Art reference sheet or, what I'm really excited about, some Art History Rocks sheets. So this year, instead of using manilla folders with pages stapled inside, my kids are using pronged folders that we can add pages to!
Because my students are working on their weaving and sewing projects right now, they are all finishing their work at different speeds. While allowing time for the kids to finish AND providing my early finishers with a quality drawing lesson, I created this sheet. It worked GREAT! My students drew lightly with pencil first on their folders then showed me their drawing before going over their lines in pencil. If you'd like this sheet, you can download it here. 

 This is the work of a couple third graders after they finished their weavings. They were so stinkin' proud of their work! The ABC sheet is one I found online. You can find it here along with a great video. 

For the background, we looked at the work of Jen Stark and talked about creating a repeating line pattern. The kids chose a line and simply repeated it in any way they liked. Again, they were working independently so lots of options were open to them. color was added with markers. 

The kids are so proud of their covers so far. They'll continue adding to these as an early finisher project. I CANNOT WAIT to introduce them to our first Art Rocks theme and get them rockin' in these books. Stay tuned!