21 Art Lessons with the Theme of Love!

Who's ready to kick off this new year with a whole lotta love, color and bright, fun lessons? BUT who's also not done any real thinkin' about said lessons?! If you said ME to both of those questions than I gotta tell ya, YOU AND ME BOTH. Luckily, I've done a whole lotta love lessons over the years and put all 21 of 'em right here in this blog post. If you follow the links to these, you'll find videos for most and lesson details for ll of them. Have fun creating!

Learn how to draw each of these cuties in these how to draw videos, found here! 

Kindergarten tried their hand at printing with this project and had such a blast! 

These relief hearts by kindergarten were a hit and definitely a lesson I hope to repeat soon! 

Of course, you can't celebrate all things love and Valentines-y without sharing the work of Chris Uphues with your students! We've done a couple lessons inspired by him. This one is a collage and printing project. 

This lesson has always been a hit on my blog with other art teachers and my students. In fact, I created this lesson as a sub plan so it's been a hit with my subs too! You can find all the details and video here.

My students created this HUGE collaborative mural inspired buy Britto. Lesson video here!

First grade created these huge Britto-inspired hearts with bingo daubers, bleeding tissue paper and paint sticks. Lesson details here. 

Ready to tackle printmaking with your students? Here's a lesson I've done a couple of years now with my second graders: Robert Indiana-inspired LOVE prints! 

I created these hearts with wings with foil, Celluclay and plaster strips! They are super simple to make. More here. 

Inspired by those hearts, I created a lesson for my second graders to make these! 

A couple of years ago, I did a professional development with the faculty and staff at my school. We created these My Heart Has Wings sculptures. Details here. 

Here was a fun lesson where we were able to use our messy mats as apart of our masterpiece! Not only that but this project provided two heart-tastic pieces for the price of one. These...

And these!

If you are looking to have your students create a large collaborative piece, you can see what each grade level worked on to make this piece here. 

Looking for a quick lesson that introduces students to three contemporary artists who used love and hearts as their theme? Check out this blog post with a video lesson! 

James Rizzi is always a fun artist to share with your students. We loved creating these love birds!

Here's another lesson we do just about every year in first grade: these woven and stitched hearts! All the lesson details can be found here. I created a variation of this lesson recently where students weave together strips of paper in their skin tones. You can find it here. 

These candy hearts were created by my fourth graders and we used plaster strips to create them. It was so fun to see these all come together and display them in a large candy heart box! Lesson details here. 

Early finishers of the candy hearts lesson moved onto this project when they were finished! 

Wow, did the third graders have a blast with this one! We made plaster chocolates that looked good enough to eat! All the lesson details here. 

Need a quick lesson with a contemporary artist inspiration? Try this JGoldcrown lesson on for size!

First Days of Art Class 2020-21

Wowza, y'all. School began last week for me with days of professional development and just yesterday for my students and all I can say is that in my 22 years of teaching, I've never had a year like this! And...it's only Tuesday.

Just to give you a little info on what my school district is doing for our elementary students: kindergarten thru second grade have the choice of going virtually or returning in the classroom. If they are returning, they are to be wearing masked, spaced 6' apart and washing or sanitizing hands frequently. My older students in third and fourth grade have the option of being remote or virtual. Remote means that, when allowed, they will be back in the building. My district plans to reassess in two weeks. However, we do have some of our third and fourth graders at school as they may be the children of teachers or learners who need to be with teachers. So, what that means is that every 3rd and 4th grade teacher has about 3-4 children in her classroom and is asked to teach them and her remote learners simultaneously via Zoom. Which is...a lot. 

As for me, I've been asked to prep lessons for all the virtual and remote learners as well as teach my in house students. Because of some schedule overlap, I have not been going live with my remote learners. Instead, I've been providing them with prerecorded videos for them to listen and create at their own pace. 

All that to say...it's been a rollercoaster so far and that was BEFORE the kids even got here. I had to much prep to do for those remote and virtual learners that I nearly neglected my in person kiddos. However, on Sunday, I came in, finished setting up my art room (new room tour to come) and recreated my Rules and Routines video. I was able to salvage the first have of the video (originally recorded in 2017) but had to completely redo the second half as we have new routines to follow. 

Here you go!

On our first day, here is what we do:

* I meet them in the hallway. If you know me, you know that I use the acronym WELCOME on the first day. 

Normally, my students would go straight to the floor and be seated...you can see my USUAL first day routine here. However, this year, we had to do two new things: get our hands immediately sanitized as I demonstrate in the video and go stand on a spot that is 6' apart. In future art classes, we'll go straight to our seats but on that first day, we wait a pinch while we all sanitize and enter the art room.

* I got everyone quickly to a seat. The tables are color coded by messy mats (not sure if they will stay but they are working for now). I also have color coded circle stickers on the back of each chair that has the table color and number on it. My friend Andrew @elementaryarts recommended them to me and I found them on Amazon. 

* Once seated, I do my greeting.
* We learn our Art Class Catchphrase.
* I introduce the Word of the Day.
* We talk about the Open/Closed sign.
* We talk about the Happy/Sad board. 

I did it just like you see in this video...except students were at their tables:

* From there, we watch the video I shared at the top of this blog post. 

* We stretch!
* We greet each other and I ask a list of silly questions (more on that in an upcoming blog post!). This you can also see in the video from last year. 
* We review the clean up routine with drums, gong and a table caller.
* We learn the lining up routine...and that's it!

And that...was our first day. I LOVE the idea of doing art in art class on the first day but with 30 minutes and so many new things...this was all I could pack in. I'll share with you what we do on the second day...and I'll continue to share with you as I learn new things about this new art teacherin' world we find ourselves in. Sending y'all hugs. We've got this!

 

Art Teacherin' Extravaganza!

Hey, y'all! If you follow me on Instagram or you have signed up for my email newsletter, then you've heard the big news: I'm throwing an Art Teacherin' Extravaganza! I'll be sharing more details here but if you just wanna jump on board and reserve your spot, go ahead and do so here!

 I've been working on putting together this experience for the last couple of months although, to be honest, it's been on my mind for years! So often there are not professional development opportunities for art teachers or when we do have them, they don't offer what it is we really need and want: hands-on creating! Here's a little more:

But, really and truly, the real reason I created this extravaganza is that I want to see you. I want to spend time with you. I know in my bones...IN.MY.BONES...how lonely teaching art can be. I spent the first ten years of my teaching career carrying around that shadow of loneliness. I know I've chatted about it at length on my podcast which you can hear here:



Knowing of my experience with loneliness, I wanted to carve out a time for you and me this summer to spend time together, meet other like-minded folks, make new friends and, best of all, create! Here's where the extravaganza will be held:

Montgomery Bell State Park has so much to offer! There's canoeing, fishing, hiking, swimming, horseback riding and much more. This might just be a great little vacation for you and your family this summer. While you are hanging with me, they could explore the park and all that is has to offer. Not to mention that Nashville is just 45 minutes away and is a buzz with stuff to do! For those attending, I'll be creating a list of my favorite things to share with you soon so you can plan your trip!

The Inn at the park has a very limited amount of rooms set aside for attendees. However, there are a ton of hotels just five miles down the road in the town of Dickson. I included a list of those hotels here. I'd recommend getting in on Thursday night so you are ready for everything on Friday morning. I'm working on creating a Facebook group for attendees to chat with friends and meet potential roomies to lower the accommodation costs.

 

I tried my best to think of every question you may have but I am sure I've forgotten something. So feel free to drop me a line! You can email me at artteacherin101@gmail.com. Love to hear from you and, hopefully, see you real soon!

In the Art Room: Teacher Fill-In-The-Blank for your PD!

For fun, I created these Teacher Fill in the Blank forms for our first day of professional development (I know, my nerd status just got elevated to Uber Nerd). It started with one I created after getting the idea. I ran it past my admin and she suggested I make a couple more for our opening meeting. I ended up creating these three. They were such a hit today that I thought I'd make them available for you! 

Feel free to download and use! Here they are...credit to yours truly would be greatly appreciated!

To kick off the meeting, I placed just the fill in the sheets on the tables, not the story. I did this so that the teachers would be more random in their word choices and thereby making the story more funny. The teachers worked in groups at their tables to compile their lists. After about 5-7 minutes, I passed out the paragraphs and the teachers dropped in their words in the order that they'd written them on their first sheet.

Table by table, one teacher would pop up and read their paragraph. Y'all...they were HILARIOUS! We were dying laughing and it was just about the most perfect way to start our school PD...says me. I love a good belly laugh with friends in the morning. 

If your school, or just the folks at your table during a PD, are looking for a fun time, this is it. Let me know if you do it, I'd love to hear what you think. Have fun and WELCOME BACK!

What the Art Teacher Wore #201

Hey, friend! Well, I made it! One week down (with two of those days being PD and the rest being with the kiddos) and many more to go. I will officially see my artists on Monday...but even without the wee ones in art, this week still wore me out! On Monday, we had some professional development during the day. Our evening was our Meet the Teacher night where I thought my new shirt from Old Navy would be perfect. 

 Normally, at the start of the school year, the halls are barren and drab. If you remember, my students painted this huge HUGE banner on field day. I saved it from that day and hung it right before school started. I added some Welcome Back banners to go above these giant paintings. They make me so happy and brighten our halls. 

Monday: Shirt is from Old Navy; necklace: J.Crew Kids; skirt is vintage from Etsy; shoes: TJMaxx; headband (seen in first photo) was created by a fellow art teacher!

Every new year means trying new things. One thing I'm trying out this year is having a little mailbox for the kids to place their drawings and notes. Like most teachers, I get A LOT of fan mail...and while I love each and every one, it can eat up a lot of instructional time if I go through them during art class. I found this cute little mailbox at Joann's and my buddy Ali used her Cricket to bedazzle it for me. The idea is that the kids can place their drawings in there. I have a special place for notes and drawings called The Masterpiece Gallery. I'll keep you posted on how this goes!

Tuesday: Sweater and headscarf: thrifted; necklace: The Paper Source; belt: Amazon; dress: Modcloth

Tuesday was meant to be a work day and I felt like I got nothing done. I'm so glad that I put in my hours before most folks were in the building. I've noticed that I'm super social and love to go around and visit...and folks love to pop by and visit me. Since I was mostly prepped, it wasn't a problem. In years past, it always stressed me out and put me behind. So I guess there is something to that whole "planning ahead" thing.

Wednesday was our first day back and it was a half day. No kids in art so that meant I had time to slap together a welcome back photo op (with the help of my music teacher friend Kiera!). We were pretty proud of our 5 minute backdrop making skills. I'm just glad I'm so good at hoarding fun finds from the Dollar Tree which is where the flora and fauna are from. 

 Welcome Back Wednesday: I decided to join in on the photo op fun by dressing in my Crayon costume. Scored this bad boy from Amazon a couple years ago. 

Here's what I was wearing underneath: t-shirt: Forever21; belt: Amazon; watches: Swatch; necklace: made by me; skirt: thrifted

Since the kiddos are coming on Monday, I've been prepping our table folders. This year, I decided to laminate them so we can use them over and again each six weeks. Details about them here.

 Nearly every year, for as long as I can remember, I've made a Back to Art Teacherin' Dress. The start of this school year has been just a little busy...and my focus has been on other things. I'm so bummed I didn't make the time to create a BTS dress! I've got so many ideas in my head...just not enough hours in my day. Details on this dress I created last year here. 

This was our first full day with kiddos. It's been our tradition for as long as I've been at my school, to pool all the kids into the Multi-purpose room and cover school rules, make introductions, talk about arrival, dismissal, lunch and so on. Last year, we got wise and made a video that covered nearly everything. It's a great way for us to make sure all kids get the basic school information that they need to be successful.

 I used to always cover my tables in paper....but it got to be too much of a waste of paper and my time. However, I do love to do it at the start of the year as there is no confusion what table the kiddos sit at. 

 It also allows me to number the spots. I do give assigned seats...so being able to say, "Jimbo, you are Green Table #1" is so much easier when they are marked this way. Once the paper gets too gnarly for use, we'll pitch it and, hopefully, still remember our seats. 

 Fri-yippie! My tables are prepped with our first day(s) activity and I'm feeling pretty good about it. Dress: made by me, details here; shoes: Chucks; belt and crinoline: Amazon! 

 I love LOVE to do collaboratives as apart of our first days back and this year is no different. Details on this to come as I'm still working on those dirty little words: lesson plans. 

Hope y'all had a great week! Details on my Matisse-inspired necklace right here.