Cassie Stephens: how to start your school year

Well, my friends. The time has come...it's back to school we go!

For many of us, anyway. I know some of y'all kept on teachin' until, like, the end of June which is absolutely WILD to me. First of all, the temperature here in Tennessee during that time of year is literally the surface of the sun. I cannot imagine trying to teach, let alone put kids on a bus, in that type of heat. And, second, let's be real: I'm tapped out come May. Okay...I'll be for-real for-real...I'm tapped out the week after spring break. So those of you that teach into June, y'all deserve a break.

BUT for those of y'all that are heading back, I thought I'd put together a blog post of a simple, fun and IMPACTFUL project for your Back to Schoolin' days.

Let's talk Back to School Banners!

One of the biggest back-to-school stressers for me was "what am I gonna teach on the first couple days?!" Because, honestly, that's not of great importance. What's VITAL is establishing Rules, Routines, Do's and Please-for-the-love-of-God Don't's. For that, you may want to check out my book, my videos or my podcast. BUT be sure and pop back here later this week as I've got more coming your way.

BUT...I always want a project that gets the kids excited! AND that gives me something fun, vibrant and happy to hang up as soon as possible. So, for that reason, I'll be sharing my fave tried and true

...Back to School Banners!

If you tap the link, I've got a video with more detail on these from how they are made to how I use them in my art room. Full disclosure: I usually create these at the END of the school year for my students to paint/color on field day. Then I hang them up in August to have some bright and happy color in the halls when students return. However, they could easily be created and utilized during Back to School!

Here's how I created these:

* Using large bulletin board paper and an ink filled bingo dauber, I draw the designs in yellow or peach chalk.

(SIDE NOTE: If you'd like to see/read more about bingo daubers and the lessons I have done with them, check out this blog post!)

* The chalk makes it easy to adjust and erase my drawings before tracing them with the "paint marker" or ink-filled dauber.

* No time to create these? That's okay, I made some for you! You can purchase the banners I created right here.

Ideas on how these banners can be used in your art room:

* So...you could go the route that you see above if you are feeling brave enough to bust out paint...on the first days of school. I would HIGHLY not recommend that. Trust me...I speak from experience.

* The above photo was taken before I discovered tempera sticks! These work far better than paint as they are less messy and the kids love them. That is what I'd recommend.

Now don't feel limited to creating giant coloring sheets as I have done. In fact, why not take it a step further and have students create a huge self-portrait banner?!

How to make this happen with a room full of kids:

* Create stations! Have students rotate from table to table. One table could have a banner with frames like this where students can draw their self portrait. I provided construction paper crayons and Sharpies for this. A short selfie demo was given first by instructing students to use ONE frame only (ahem) and draw with their marker before adding color with Sharpies. We made the frames extra fancy by coloring those with metallic tempera sticks.

* The other table stations could include your banners! So students are always active, creative, coloring and moving around the room. This would also be a great way to get students acquainted with your art room.

* Why not include a Gratitude Banner where students draw portraits of their teachers and the faculty and staff in the frames? That's similar to a lesson that I did here and here.

Now, let's take the Back to School Banner in a totally different direction and make Back to School table covers! In my book Art Teacherin' 101, I talk about how I have my tables color coded as I'm sure many of you do too. Each table is referred to as a 'team' and expected to work together. As they do, I give them points for their table in Class Dojo.

Here's where it gets interesting. On Class Dojo, where you would normally put in a student's name, I put in the table color. EVERY class has the opportunity to earn points for their table team. So...if the Red Team earns 5 points in Ms. Smith's first grade class, those points are earned across ALL of the Red Teams in ALL of my classes. This creates a School-Wide incentive to do well of the team.

Does that make sense? Let me tell you...it works great!

During those first days of school as we get used to our table and the idea of table teams, I roll out (literally) these color coded mats. After hearing rules and routines, we often don't have much time left in class. So we spend that time adding color and kind words to our table covering.

Students use construction paper crayons to add bright colors to these banners.

In the past, I ALWAYS used paper to color code the tables on those first weeks of school. After a month, the banners were a mess so they were tossed. Usually, I only had them to signify the table colors those first few days and after that, my students knew their table.

However, when they made these, I really wanted to save them. So...here's what I did:

* Fold the table covering in half LENGTHWISE.

* Slowly put the table covering through the school laminator. Ours was the width of the paper folded lengthwise.

* Once through the laminator, cut along the unfolded edges of the folded banner.

* And Ta-Da! You now have a banner that is laminated on one side!

Because of the crease, you do have to flatten a bit. I simply taped mine to the underside of each table.

Added bonus: now you can draw on them with dry erase markers!