Frankentecture - Constructed Architecture, fourth grade sketchbook assignment and clip card in School Arts!

I opened my SchoolArts magazine to find my clip card for my sketchbook lesson Frankentecture had been published!  That was pretty exciting!

Frankentecture is part of a unit on 19th century architecture I teach my fourth graders.  I wrote a little bit more about it in my classroom blog .  Before I even knew about the SchoolArts article, my current fourth graders completed the assignment and they turned out great!

History of Photography: A great intro for our 19th century portraits and a great website find!

My fourth grade is stuck in the 19th century for the first couple of art class units.  We just finished a unit on 19th century architecture.  Our next project is learning about facial proportions and drawing and painting self-portraits in the style of 19th century photography.

I put together a terrible slide show to help my class understand the history of the camera, and to gain some knowledge about 19th century photography's unique look.

It was a terrible slide show.

I put way too much unnecessary information in it, and I'm pretty sure the kids ended up more confused than before.  I knew it was heading south when I kept trying to compare film and digital, but explaining that the 19th century pictures weren't film... Ugh.  You get the idea.

After class I immediately searched for "History of Photography for Kids" and stumbled upon this fantastic website! I found a slideshow with exactly the information I wanted to share with my class.  We are going to pretend like this morning never happened, and we will have a new show to watch next week!

Juxtaposed Collage Cityscapes - Successful third grade sketchbook lesson with slideshow!

I am in the middle of a unit on Chicago Cityscapes with my third graders.  We finished up our sketchbook project, "Juxtaposed Collage Cityscape," and I am super excited about their success!

To start, students cut out photos and drawings of buildings in Chicago.  They practiced overlapping and constructing a cityscape.  Next, we watched and discussed my little slideshow called "Juxtaposed Cityscapes."  Kids were then asked to draw something in their cityscape, that maybe wouldn't normally be there.
Next, students traced their drawn images with metallic markers, and used opaque paint markers to color.  If time allotted, students colored their buildings with color sticks.

Organizing class projects that are in-progress.

I am fortunate to teach at two schools that are grade-level centers. Therefore, I only need to have three grades prepped at a time- depending on what building I am in.  Even with only three lessons going at a time- my room was usually messy. Counter space is limited, and I was often frustrated that my lesson files, examples, and lesson specific supplies were in piles all over the room.

I started putting lesson supplies in grade level boxes to stack and store on my counter. I got a stack of fruit/veggie boxes from Costco and labeled them. Now, everything is handy for the next week.  When that class comes in I spread out their supplies on the counter, then return them to the box when I am done.  When a unit is finished, I empty the box and start again.

New Substitute Lessons tab on NoCornerSuns.com

Check out the new Substitute Lessons tab on the blog!  This is a great quick reference for all the sub lessons I currently have available.

The new tab features download & print ready lessons for you to leave for your art room substitute.  You will hardly have to leave any additional notes!

Easy way to organize your dry rack. Color coded place mats!

My students are all ready in the habit of bringing their small wet work of art up to the dry rack on a place mat.  Many of the projects my intermediate students create are smaller, and they fall through the rack causing mass chaos.  My dry racks only hold work up to 12" x 18".  For years I have reused 12" x 18" construction paper  to do the job.

I just figured out a way to keep the dry rack neat and make passing back artwork a breeze.  Color-coded place mats!  If you sit at the red table, you get a red placemat, if you sit at the green table, you get a green one.... when they bring them up to the rack, I can sort them immediately by table as I put them to dry - or older students just put them on by themselves.  When they are dry, I can easily discern what folder to put them in.

It is working great and saving loads of time passing back work!

Interior of a House: Brainstorming handout.

Just like the Exterior of a House handout, here is a quick reference for the Interior of a House.

A quick lesson on interior and exterior is to have kids fold a paper and make the outside the exterior, and the inside of the paper the interior.  This little page gets them brainstorming all the things that belong on the inside, all the rooms they need to include, all the furniture, and all the little details.

Art & Me: Get to know your students while they get to know you worksheet.

Art & Me page 1

Art & me page 2

Several years ago I had a class that I just could not connect with.  They hated me from the get go.  No matter how cheery or enthused I acted, it usually turned into bitter sarcasm by the time the hour was over.  It was miserable.  Week after week I would try new, fun, exciting projects - but I usually had to modify everything.  The blatant disrespect kept art class from being a nurturing experience and made it torture for me.

At the beginning of my teaching career a wise principal told me that nobody wants to be told what to do by a stranger.  Isn't that true?  No one wants some lunatic in the Target parking lot yelling at them for their driving. Whereas, if your husband says, "You just cut that guy off!  What are you doing?"  It's a little more sympathetic.

I knew I had to make a connection with this class, no matter how much they fought.  I had the odds against me though.  I only saw them an hour a week.  I was only in the building two days a week.  I was new to their school, so I had no past relationship.

I made up the Art & Me worksheet so that I could share a little about myself, and hopefully learn more about them.  It wasn't completely successful.  It wasn't like we all immediately bonded or anything.  In fact many of the students' attitudes remained the same until they left in 5th grade.  But, what it did do was open up some conversation with the kids that really did like art class, and really did want to be there, but were often taken in by the behaviors of others.

Now I have been teaching the same kids for several years.  I'm not the new guy and almost all of my kids I've known since kindergarten.  It makes it easier.  I know that doesn't help new teachers who might be struggling to make that relationship, but keep in mind, it's not really you.  Those tough kids I taught didn't really hate art class, or hate me.  Even though it seemed like it, and they probably thought it, and even though I heard them say it several times.  They just didn't want some stranger gettin' up in their business.  They were already getting told what to do and how to act five other hours of the day.  Some dorky art teacher spouting about color theory was not on the radar.

Here is the version I passed out to my class.

The teacher has to fill in the bubbles before copying, and your kids fill in the other parts.

Exterior of a House: Brainstorming handout.

A great lesson for primary students to learn a little about architecture is to have them build or draw an exterior of a home.

Your class knows what belongs on the outside of a home, but they do not always know how to draw it.  I usually have them call things out and I draw them on the board for them to reference later.

That doesn't always work.  Some classes perhaps can not handle that experience.  That is why I drew up this Exterior of a House brainstorming handout.  It's not the prettiest.  I know I did it just before a class came to see me, but it has the basics.  The kids always have better ideas then what I drew, and that is exactly what it is for!

Masterwork Parodies: A worksheet featuring American Gothic and the Mona Lisa coloring pages

Kids love to create parodies of famous artwork!  I made up this worksheet for my kids as an end of year project.  It includes coloring pages, one of American Gothic, and one of the Mona Lisa.  My students would make their parody on plain white copy paper and use the coloring pages to trace the parts that stayed the same.

Chicago Cityscape: Parts of Composition worksheet

I have several resources on a project I call Chicago Cityscapes: 

The original lesson plan

A Chicago architecture slideshow

and now a worksheet I developed about this project.  Some years you may have a class that just needs the project to be modified, and that is okay.  No one wants to teach a project over and over and over again the same way anyway! And that is how this worksheet was born.

Ande Cook's Limitation Worksheet with a sub lesson

Several years ago, I purchased Ande Cook's book Art Starters.  I adapted a few of the pages to create lessons for substitutes.
Here is a lesson plan for the page Limitation.  The concepts are abstract design, and critical thinking.  This is fun for any age!

The Ande Cook handouts were part of a SchoolArts subscription, or you can get her book: Art Starters 

No "M" birds! Tropical bird clip art page.

Hey!  Put a bird on it.  In first grade I teach the class how to draw birds using basic shapes.  This comes in handy for a tropical bird lesson with Rousseau and mixing primary colors.  It also comes in handy in the future when they start drawing "M" birds and I can say, "Hey kid, we learned how to draw real birds in first grade."

The Tropical Bird Clip Art page is exactly what it sounds like.  It is four pages of tropical bird clip art I curated off of Microsoft Word.  I pass these out after the students have learned how to draw birds and are ready for some more details.

Positive/Negative Space Coloring Page and Substitute Lesson Week!

It's substitute teacher week!  I just made that up, because I have a weeks worth of sub-lessons to share with you!  I am just a little protective of my students and their art class experience.  I've spent a lot of time making sure that the lessons my kids do with a sub are meaningful, educational, and of course easy for a sub to teach.  Oh yeah, and it's not like I am absent all the time... I have been teaching for 14 years, and I've had 2 maternity leaves, and I'm just a little particular about things.

I have a lesson that goes a long with a page I recently posted.   The  Element of Space coloring page by Art Sherman is just basic coloring and pattern making, but it is sometimes worth practicing.  Here is the lesson that goes along with it!  Print it out and leave it for your sub.

Drawing Masks - Another Substitute Lesson

Here is another lesson I made inspired by a worksheet in Ande Cook's book Art Starters.

Here is the lesson and here is the page to help your students out.

The Ande Cook handouts were part of a SchoolArts subscription, or you can get her book: Art Starters 

Chicago Cityscape PowerPoint

I recently posted a lesson plan for Chicago Cityscapes.  Here is a free downloadable PowerPoint that teaches students about Chicago's cityscape, and also about how artists have interpreted it.

Refilling refillable glue bottles. The saga continues.

I do not have a good relationship with glue.

I hate that it gets clogged.
I hate that it makes a mess when you refill the bottles.
And, I hate that I am completely obsessed with it.

I knew that I had to bite the bullet and refill my refillable glue bottles so that my students could actually make some art.  It's only the 3rd week of school, but I put it off long enough.  They were in pathetic shape, and should of been refilled in March or April.   We were really spreading it thin in the spring.

I started to unscrew all the caps. I was dreading every moment.  The tightness and burn on my hands as I tried to open each one.  The cracking flaking glue everywhere,  the huge clogs the had taken the shape of the nozzle.  Ugh.

I started to pour my giant gallon of glue knowing it was not going to be pretty.  It suddenly dawned on me that a funnel would work nicely!  Yes, a funnel.

I fashioned a funnel out of laminated construction paper (that I just happened to have lying around) and masking tape.  It worked!  The glue stayed in the bottle - but it was taking forever.  So I made another, and then another!  It was working!  Hallelujah!

I dripped or over filled a few times.  Of course the gallon was a huge mess.  Overall I felt successful and so proud that my students would once again have glue to use.

Then I got to screw all the caps back on, and that just made my day.

Are you ready for a substitute? Download an easy sub lesson and forms for your subs basic needs.

Do you have your emergency sub plans ready?  Download Line Caterpillars and add it to your sub folder.  It is super easy to teach, curriculum appropriate, and uses minimal supplies.

Line Caterpillars is one of the lessons in my new (soon to be released) book The Art Teacher's Substitute Notebook:  K-2 Lessons.  The book contains 11 or 12 detailed lessons specifically for subs!

Does the lesson look a little confusing?  Don't worry!  This page explains the details.

But wait, there's more! Leaving sub notes is way more then just leaving easy to teach lessons.  Don't leave your sub confused and scared by your subject, your classroom, or your students!  Leave a copy of The Art Teacher's Substitute Notebook:  The Basics.  The Basics contains 8 pages of customizable .pdfs.  Everything your sub will need to know about supplies, emergency plans, and routines is available here.

Art Room/Classroom Bulletin Board Signs: Warm, Cool, Complementary, Neutral, Art, Art News, Artsonia, Goals, Self-Portraits

Have you seen my collection of Art Room/Classroom Bulletin Board Signs?  They've been getting some action on TeachersPayTeachers, so I thought I'd advertise them a little more.

Here are the details:

Here are some fun signs to decorate your art room bulletin boards! I made these out of various fabric scraps and scanned them.

Four signs for your color theory board:
Warm Colors
Cool Colors
Complementary Colors
Neutral Colors

An Art sign for your door,

and four more signs for various displays you may have in your room.
Art News
Goals
Artsonia
and Self Portraits

Print your signs on a high quality color printer and trim and mount for use.

Thanks!

Art class warm-up with 3rd-5th grade: Art is...

I was recently inspired by Tumblr Artful Artsy Amy and her post "What is Art." I decided to try it out as a nice warm-up for my 3rd-5th graders on their first day of class.

We watched and discussed Amy's slideshow, "What is Art" and then wrote our own answers or definitions on our paper hands.  I loved the answers and I loved that my students were actually thinking of solid answers.

My end product wasn't as aesthetically pleasing as Artful Artsy Amy (I had hands written on every which way!) but the overall message gets through!  Plus, I have a great bulletin board for curriculum night.

 

Monuments Around the World: Free PowerPoint/Slideshow to match my table signs

My classroom theme this year is Monuments Around the World.  I made seven signs that hang up above my tables.  They are color coded so I can call a table by color, and they each feature a famous monument...so I can also call the Eiffel Tower table.  Using something besides the color to call a table switches it up a bit, and creates teachable moments.  In the past I have used artist names, works of art, planets, sea creatures, and even zoo animals!

In conjunction with my signs - I put together this super basic PowerPoint  that displays each table color and sign, and then lists a few facts about the monument.  It has been a good introduction to the monuments and the kids have been receptive to learning about their team sign.