In the Art Room: Sketchbook Decoder Sheets

Hey, y'all! I'm trying, once again, to give sketchbooks a go in my art room. It's always been tricky for me with 30 minute art classes and I've tried doing sketchbooks a BAH-ZILLION different ways. Here's hoping this works. MORE sketchbook details to come (I even created insert pages, y'all...I'm crazy) but until then, I thought I'd share with you a previous post on how I have done sketchbooks in the past . AND I wanted to share with you this free PDF on how they created these sketchbook covers!

Now if these decoder sheets look familiar it is because this is the same idea I used for our Getting to Know You Sculptures!

For our sketchbook covers we used 6" X 18" paper and paint sticks. But really, this would be a great activity for sub plans, the start of abstract painting or simply Getting to Know You works of art!

 Here is one Sketchbook Cover Decoder Sheet.

And here is the other titled MORE Sketchbook Cover Decoder Sheet.

The reason for the smaller format of the sketchbook decoder sheet is that these were later added to their sketchbooks when assembled!

 The kids loved creating these and I loved how colorful and creative they were. These could be done with just about any art medium too!

You'll have to keep me posted if you give these sheets a dry with your students! A fun line and shape review as well!

In the Art Room: Tiny Gallery of Gratitude

Recently, I shared that my students in fourth grade are working on creating their own Tiny Art Show. Because I was going to be out of school for a couple of days visiting the art teachers in Vermont, I needed a lesson to keep my students engaged. I created this Tiny Gallery of Gratitude sheet for my third and fourth grade students. I hope they enjoyed it (I'll find out tomorrow!) but fingers crossed they did. If you think your student would like it too, here's a link to the FREE PDF. 

I gathered these books for my sub to start the lesson with. They are all wonderful books to introduce the idea of gratitude. Because my sub would be with my students for a couple of days, I asked that she read a book at the start of each class...but I let her decide which ones to read. 

 Here is the sheet I created for my kindergarten through second grade students. (link works, just click on bold sentence!)

As for supplies, I set out pencils, erasers and color pencils for my students to use. I asked that the sub save the work so that we could return to this drawing as a sketch for early finishers. I also want to see what they drew!

If you are interested in other projects that show gratitude, here you go:

 This Gallery of Gratitude lesson was a HUGE hit with the entire school with all creative hands on deck. I cannot recommend doing this lesson enough!

 I recently did an updated version of the Gallery of Gratitude and I love it even more! We used modeling clay and did a bit of writing out the faculty and/or staff member we were grateful for. Lesson here and here. 

Helping my students understand what gratitude is and how to show it is very important to me. Do you have lessons that you love that help spread gratitude? I'd love to hear about them!

In the Art Room: Clean Up Routines!

Is your art teacherin' clean up time a real pain in the, well, you know? I've tried EVERY clean up trick under the sun and I've finally found what works. There's a whole lot of bells, whistles and moving parts when it comes to my routine...some may work for you, some may not. But that's the trick. Finding what works and sticking with it. In my podcast episode this week, I am sharing an audio clip of my kids cleaning up from the alarms I set...

(And there are a lot of alarms I set because each day of my schedule is different AND each of my classes is 30 minutes in length) to the Clean Up Drums and Gong, to the Table Caller and the super easy reward system I use to encourage a quick, quiet and amazing clean up. I'll also be sharing a whole lot of alternatives to what I use as I don't assume most of y'all have a drum set or a gong. I hope you will take a listen AND I hope you'll share what clean up routines work for you. Here's the episode:

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!

In the Art Room: Tips for Both Hosting a Student Teacher AND Being a Student Teacher!

It's a new school year...which means that some of y'all are going to be student teachers and others might be considering taking a student teacher on. No matter which boat you find yourself in, I've got a podcast episode for you! I've hosted a grand total of three art teachers in my art room (with only one becoming an art teacher and that's the amazing Rebecca Tenpenny) so my track record isn't great. But I have learned some things having had my feet in both set of shoes so I thought I'd share them.  

If you find yourself in the "about to be a student teacher" camp, you should definitely take a listen. This is the time you are going to be learning SO STINKIN' MUCH so you'll want to make the most of it. Take a listen here:

And if you are thinking of hosting a student teacher, I can share with you what I've learned from those experiences. Here's more:


If you are interested in reading more about that mural Rebecca is working on, you can travel back in time to this blog post for more.

I also did an interview with her a while back! You can read about that here.