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Category Archives: all grades

Rubber Ducky Public Sculptures in St. Joseph, Michigan

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A rubber ducky dressed as a cowboy with a hat, red bandana, green checkered shirt, and blue overalls.

A couple of weeks ago we took a summer trip to my brother’s cabin in Michigan.  We spent some time in the lovely city of St. Joseph, Michigan.  It is right on Lake Michigan and we enjoyed playing in the sand, walking on the piers, eating ice cream, playing on the beach playground, splashing on the splash pad and tinkering around in the two children’s museums.   As an art teacher, I was delighted to see large public art sculptures of … Read more… →

Masking with Watercolor

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Dream-themed watercolor painting featuring stars, hearts, and whimsical swirls against a vibrant blue and purple background inspired by cosmic visions.

  Hi friends! First of all, have you entered my BIG FUN ART TEACHER giveaway?  If not, go to this blog post or the Facebook page to enter. Today’s blogpost is a cross-post.  This week I was a guest blogger on Marit’s Paper World for her Quirky Dutch Summer series.  In case you missed it, I thought I would share it here as well.  This is a fun and easy technique you could try with your students. Masking with Watercolor … Read more… →

Contemporary Art in the Elementary Art Classroom: A Blog Round-up!

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A collage featuring various contemporary art pieces and the text "Contemporary Art in the Elementary Art Classroom.

This year my professional goal was to learn more about contemporary artists and to create art lessons inspired by these artists.   I taught about William Wegman and Justin Vining.  We looked at contemporary artists inspired by microscopic things and living artists that used Disney as inspiration.  At the end of the year, my students learned about Shinique Smith, Nicolas Lampert and various artists that used stuffed animals as a theme in their art (blog posts to come soon about all … Read more… →

Positive Behavior Notes for Art Class

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Colorful "Good News Note!" cards with stripes and polka dots, praising students for their achievements and positive behavior in art class.

I now have “Good News Notes” in my shop.  Save time with parent communication by filling out these easy positive notes.  It’s always better to start with positive communication so that when you have something less positive to say you already have a relationship with the parents.  I used to send out Good News notes and decided I wanted to revamp and update them for next year.  Here is what one of them looks like: Send individual notes to parents … Read more… →

Easy End of Year Art Project: Collaborative Banners

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Easy End of Year Art Project

Are you looking for an easy end-of-year art project?  On the last days of school, I had some students that needed to finish up art projects and others that really just wanted to be done with the school year.  This was a fun and easy collaborative project that many students opted to participate in. I got the idea from Romero Britto’s word artworks, like this one and I think I may have seem *something similar* somewhere at some time.. but … Read more… →

Create an Art Memory Book

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Create a Memory Book of Your Child's Artwork-- Preserve your art!

My daughter who is in 4k comes home with at least 3 drawings every day.  She can draw during free choice or nap time (she won’t nap).  Plus with the drawing she does at home, we have collected hundreds of drawings.  I’ve saved almost all of them.  Her favorite things to draw are My Little Ponies, Paw Patrol characters and people.  By far, she has more pony drawings than anything else.  I don’t bother sorting them, I just take them … Read more… →

Summer Art Challenge

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Summer Art Challenge" text pops against a vibrant background of colorful diagonal rainbow stripes.

I am going to introduce this summer art challenge to my students next week.  I did this summer art challenge a couple of years ago and we had a lovely display in the fall.  The parents of the kids who participated thanked me for the ideas.  Whenever their kids said they were bored, they told them to pick something from the list. It’s been awhile since I updated the list of challenges, so I went over it today to freshen … Read more… →

Art Around the World – Sketchbook Prompt Cards

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Art Around the World – Sketchbook Prompt Cards

I am super excited to tell you about my new pack of sketchbook prompt cards.  My Art History Sketchbook Prompts have helped out a lot of art teachers and I wanted to make more.  My students enjoy learning about different art works and they like getting small nuggets of information along with the chance to create artwork inspired by what they see.   The new art history prompts are called Art Around the World – a set of 14 task cards … Read more… →

Tissue Paper Bowls – Paper Mache

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Two colorful, hand-painted tissue paper bowls with floral designs on a white background.

I’m excited that I am now part of the Elmer’s Crafty Blogger Crew!  I have long been a fan of Elmer’s products and already frequently use their glue sticks, glue bottles and paper mache paste.  I decided since I am elbows deep in paper mache already, I would create some fun paper mache bowls. Learning Activity Topics: art in three-dimensions, paper mache, translucent quality of materials, layering Activity Description: Students will use paper mache paste to layer tissue paper and … Read more… →

Our Silhouette Mural is Finished!

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Bright silhouettes of children with colorful educational themes painted on their bodies decorate a white school hallway wall, showcasing a beautifully crafted silhouette mural.

Our silhouette mural is finished!  It went pretty quickly once we got started.   Each of the figures represents different subject areas at school.  Students in grades 4-6 did most of the painting and I had some students in 7-8 grade do touch-ups, edging and fine details.   I made a video slideshow of the steps we made to paint the mural to show for the whole school.  The school presentation has lots of photos of students in it.  I made … Read more… →

An Interview with Artist Justin Vining

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A colorful abstract painting by Justin Vining depicts a house on a snowy hill under a starry sky with constellations.

Back in September, I posted a huge list of contemporary artists.  One of the artists, Justin Vining, saw that I included his artwork in my post and left a comment on my blog.  We exchanged a few emails and I decided to use him as a resource in my classroom.  I was excited that one of the artists reached out to me through my blog and I thought it was especially cool that Justin used to be an elementary art … Read more… →

Starting a Mural at School!

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Outline of a child playing a trumpet drawn on a white wall near a light switch.

  We are starting a huge mural at school!!  I will keep you updated as we start to paint it.  It’s hard to see what’s going on in these pictures, but we traced figures on to large white banner paper, cut them out and then traced those on to the wall.  Next week the painting begins! I was thinking of something school themed and since the wall is so long a parade of kids would be fun. The idea evolved … Read more… →

25 Awesome Art Books for Kids

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A collage of 10 colorful art book covers for kids with the title "25 Awesome Art Books for Kids" in the center.

Hello! If you are visiting this page NOW, be sure to check out my Amazon Affiliate List where I have a running list of ALL my favorite art books for my elementary art classroom. I continually update this list as I find new amazing art books to share! ART BOOKS FOR KIDS (Amazon Affiliate list – no extra charge for you, I receive a small commission for recommending these books, which goes to support the upkeep of this blog.) HOW … Read more… →

Group Eagle Bulletin Board with Patterned Feathers

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Group Eagle Bulletin Board with Patterned Feathers

Many of my students contributed feathers to this giant eagle bulletin board.  Our school is Eagle School and I wanted to do a group artwork where many kids could participate in designing a piece of the picture.  I was out sick one day and I had my students each create a patterned feather with the substitute teacher. If your mascot is not an eagle, you could do this bulletin board with a peacock or really any bird would work!

  • Banner with colorful artwork promoting an art shop featuring kindness coloring pages, artist activities, and resources for teachers.