In the Art Room: The Gallery Game!

UPDATE! Here is the Painting Genres PDF.

AND here's the Tiny Art Museum PDF. 

Lately, I've been inspired by two amazing art teachers: McKay Lanker Bayer who is the art teacher behind Tiny Art Show (see more on her Instagram @tinyartshow) and Emily Compton who is an elementary art teacher who recently shared how she uses games for assessment. I was struck by McKay's Tiny Art show concept and have been wanting to do this with my students. What I love about McKay's art show is that it's not just little works of art but it's also about how to curate an art showing. And I totally fell in love with Emily's super simple assessment ideas. 

I have many weaknesses as a teacher but one of the two that I want to work on this school year are assessment, teamwork (for the kids, I gave up on being a team player myself) and including more art in lessons. This Gallery Game I came up with seemed to do all of those things. Plus the works of art are so tiny that it ties in perfectly to the Tiny Art Show we'll soon be creating!

Hopefully this video will help you out!

To create the game, I used this artist sticker book from Dover Publications. I added the stickers to magnets and scored the cookie sheets at The Dollar Tree. I created two games per table so that kids could pair up and work together. They were to sort the artwork according to THIS Painting Genre sheet. They were to then create a museum, curated anyway they liked. Most choose to categorize the work by genre but others did by artist or color. 

From there, they drew on their cookie sheet, using both sides of the sheet if necessary. Inside a sheet protector, they could name their museum, the sections and draw a map! It was a lot of work for them in 30 minutes but they had a blast AND they learned so much!

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In the Art Room: The Smartest Artist

I've been at this art teacher business for something approaching 15 years and during that decade and a half, I've learned I suck at consistency. If you are in the teaching field, you know there are all sorts of tricks of the trade for establishing routine and discipline in your classroom. Using sticker charts, pulling popsicle sticks, putting marbles in a jar, you teachers know this stuff.

I created the "Masterpiece Gallery" years ago with frames donated from a framing shop that was going out of business. I used cork that comes by the roll as the backing and covered the cork with jersey fabric in primary colors. 

Well, I've tried all that. And I hate it. I can't keep up with it, I forget to give a sticker or drop a marble (I've lost too many along the way) and it just ends up being more work with less results. For me. For some of you, it may work beautifully. But you might not have that trouble with consistency like I do.  You jerk.

However, I recently did come up with something that I can keep up with. It's a two-minute activity I do with the kids as they are lining up to exit. I hand one random kid the inflatable microphone, making him/her our host and I shout "And now it's time for..." and the kids reply "the Smartest Artist!".

I then proceed to ask the kids questions about what we've covered today. For example, my fourth grade is doing metal tooling. So my questions were "What activity were we doing today?" "What is it called when you dent the metal in with your tool? (embossing)" "What is the Egyptian symbol for life?"(we are using Egyptian symbols in our design). You get the idea. As I ask the questions, the host will call on a boy or a girl and we keep score on the dry erase board.

The kids really seem to enjoy it. In fact today I was asked if we could make sure to clean up on time (because Mrs. Inconsistent is ALWAYS running late) so we'd have enough time to play.

Today, my littlest friends, the kindergarten, learned how to play a fill on the drums. They were wildly excited. Afterward, we drew self portraits of us rocking out on the drum set. Many thanks to Forks Drum Closet http://www.forksdrumcloset.com  for the generous donation!

 My art classes are a little on the short side. I see my kids for 30 minutes twice a week. That's IF I'm not running late. And in between getting supplies out, giving directions and cleaning up (if that's what you call what we scramble to do in 30 seconds or less), we are usually at a 17 minute work time. So this short little recap is just right for me to keep up with.

My amazing third grade artists. We spent many classes learning about the proportions of the face, shading and, of course Egypt. After capturing their Egyptian likeness, the kids created an almost life size sarcophagus.

Once the kids painted their designs in black, I introduced them to the metallic paints (insert choir of angels singing). To them, this is the best thing ever. The temptation to paint their nails is strong...but the impending wrath of their art teacher is stronger...as they know!

Okay, look. I don't claim to be the Smartest Artist. But if you need an end-of-the-class, everyone-loves-it, educational activity, I say try it. You might like it.

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