A Tour of My Art Room

GUYS! I am SO EXCITED! Our new addition is complete and the physical space of our school has doubled. It is so nice to not have to push your way through the halls. It’s like there’s breathing room now. We also have a new art room, so I HAVE MY OWN ROOM NOW. I’m so thrilled that we don’t have to share a room anymore and all of our supplies can spread out. I have the old room and our middle school teacher has the other room. The rooms are connected by a mutual storage room in between. My room is not super fancy, but I’ve spent hours and hours and hours cleaning, organizing and moving supplies & furniture to get things ready for school.  This post has a million pictures, but I wanted to show you them.

I found a nice place for this banner I made.  This is in the hallway outside the art room.

Welcome to my Art Room!

Isn’t this vinyl quote awesome??  I found it on Amazon: Every Child is an Artist Vinyl Wall Decal.  I put it right above my whiteboard.

Here is a view of the room.  The colored puff balls above the tables tell the kids what color table they are sitting at.  I call the kids up by their table colors and they are assigned jobs based on colors.

This is the storage room.  The kiln room is off to the right side.

My new green storage cabinets.  Since I got green storage cabinets, I decided on a green color scheme for my room.  Green bulletin board, green chairs, etc.

This is my teacher desk and my new book shelf!  I have a lot more books, but I am going to rotate them out as the year goes on to keep the choices fresh.  I have already noticed more kids looking at the books than when they were all in tubs.

This purple shelf I found at the college swap store for $20.  SCORE!  Next summer I’m going to spray paint it green to match my room.  No time now for that.  The apron I got from Cafe Press.  Someone posted about it on the Facebook art teacher group, and I thought it was cool.  I will not order from them again.  The first time it came, the colors were all faded and wrong, like the ink was running out.  They sent me another one, but again the colors are not as vibrant as the ones shown on the website.

This is what I rigged up for storing artwork.  Each grade level has a box for the artwork and I will put all their paper projects in these boxes that fit.  The boxes fit size 12″x18″ papers.  I bought them from Walmart.  The wire shelf I got from Menards.

I made this display area by nailing in two nails and stringing a wire between them.  Then, I just used clothespins to hang pictures.  Easy-peasy.  The colorful signs are from my Art Discussion Signs set.

I also found this rolling cart at the college swap store for $15.  Double score!

Sink area and paints.

This is my view out the window.  It’s so nice!

This is the supply shelf for student use.  They are free to take whatever they need during class.  I bought the colored baskets at Really Good Stuff.

This is the paper shelf for student use.  They are free to take any paper they need for use during class.  It’s also the collage center they can use for their art journals and soon I will have building materials in those blue buckets.

This is my “What Do I Do When I’m Done” board.

This is part of my one bulletin board in my room.  I love this picture!

I explained the noise chart to the kids this way:  When they come in the room, they need to be on Noise Level 1 (Ninja Silence).  They are to look at the board and start their art warm-up right away in their art journal.  They will have 5 minutes to start the art warm-up in complete silence.  They probably will not finish it, but can come back to it later at another time.  Then, when I’m demonstrating or talking, they should be on Noise Level 1.  When they are working on an art project, they can be at Noise Level 2 or 3 (their choice.)  Noise Level 4 is outdoor voices and should never take place in the art room.  If it gets too loud, then the whole class will have to go back to Ninja Silence.

These are my art room rules and the job chart.  To make the job chart, I print off these pictures, glued them to a long piece of poster board and laminated the whole thing.  Then, I painted the clothespins to match the colors of the tables and I can change the jobs each day or week.  The kids who sit at those tables will have that particular job for the day.  The teacher’s helper just means any extra random jobs that I didn’t have a picture for!  I obviously won’t need to assign jobs to every table every day, but I think it will help with those extra jobs I end up needing help with.

Well, that’s it!  I hope you’ve enjoyed my room tour!  I’ve totally enjoyed seeing all the art rooms posted online in the Art Teacher Facebook group.