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

Chicks at School

Handmade art of three yellow chicks with feathers on paper, ideal for school projects or classroom decoration.

We have some chicks at school.  Chicks, like baby chickens. One of the science teachers taught the kids about the life cycle of chickens and the kids watched as the eggs were incubated and hatched. They grow so quickly! With all the excitement of the hatching chicks, the students were thrilled to create some chick artwork.  Here is a mural/bulletin board that students in grades 2-3 worked together on. Next, we did a step-by-step project in kindergarten to make a … Read more…

Huge Printable Art Advocacy List! What Do Artists Do?

Huge Printable Art Advocacy List!  What Do Artists Do?

Many of you probably know of Ian and Melissa from Apex High School.  They have developed a list of Artistic Behaviors for the high school level.  I have been following along and seeing how they teach their students.  Seeing their list gave me the idea to create posters that shows kids what artists do and what exactly is an artist.  I decided to simplify the behaviors for elementary school students and start from the basics.  Start from the ground and … Read more…

What Do Artists Do? Signs about ARTISTS and Artistic Behaviors

Colorful poster with art supplies at the edges and the text "What Do ARTISTS DO?" in the center, highlighting various artistic behaviors.

I have something to share with you that I’ve been working on for a long time.  Well, a couple of months.  It takes forever for me to accomplish anything lately (I have a clingy toddler who doesn’t like to sleep) so I work in short spurts whenever I get a chance. Many of you probably know of Ian and Melissa from Apex High School.  They have developed a list of Artistic Behaviors for the high school level.  I have been … Read more…

Rubber Ducky Art Project for Kids

A grid of 16 colorful and creatively decorated duck drawings, each uniquely themed and detailed, making it an amusing art project for kids.

While vacationing in Michigan this summer, I came across some really cool public sculptures of different themed ducks.  You can see pictures of these sculptures on this previous blog post. At the beginning of the school year, I showed my students lots of examples of these public sculptures and we talked about how one of these public art exhibitions works. City of St. Joseph Public ART St. Joseph Ducks Facebook Page Then, they used a simple duck template and transformed … Read more…

Summer Art Challenge Display

A colorful bulletin board displays various kids' artworks, including paintings, crafts, and paper cutouts created during a summer art challenge.

At the end of the year last school year, I passed out Summer Art Challenge sheets.  Each of the students who participated received a certificate and a prize or two or three depending on how much of the challenge they completed.  Visit this past blog post to read about the challenge activities. Here is the certificate I passed out.  I blocked off my name and the school name/year, so you can use this award sheet and just add your name … Read more…

Easy Collaborative Art Banners with Motivational Words

Colorful "Word Banners" header featuring illustrated words: Read, Wonder, Succeed, Smile in vibrant patterns.

  At the end of the year in June, I posted about a collaborative word banner project I did with all of my students.  Write inspirational words using block or bubble letters on large banner paper.  Outline with paint.  Color patterns and designs inside with markers.  Use printouts of Romero Britto‘s artwork for pattern inspiration. I also used this as an option for students who finished their other art projects and wanted to help out.  I saved them for the … Read more…

Art Room Organization

Art Room Organization

I love organizing things, especially art materials.  It makes it easier to find things you need when your room is organized!  I am always revamping my organizational systems and I feel like my room now is arranged pretty well for my needs.  I am sure I will find some things that need tweaking over the next few years. On each table I have a plastic drawer set labeled with pencils & eraser, glue sticks & scissors, and markers.  On the … Read more…

Easy End of Year Art Project: Collaborative Banners

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…

Group Eagle Bulletin Board with Patterned Feathers

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!

Dot Day Celebration

Dot Day Celebration

Like many other art teachers around the world, my students participated in International Dot Day.  The students dressed up in polka dots, we watched the story of The Dot and sang along to The Dot song. If you have not read the book The Dot, by Peter H. Reynolds, it’s a must-have for the art teacher! Two of my classes made the giant 3-d stuffed dots.  These were super fun to make.  I traced a hula hoop onto a large … Read more…

Reach for the Stars – Back to School Bulletin Board

Reach for the Stars – Back to School Bulletin Board

I hope you are enjoying your first few weeks back to school!   Here is a Reach for the Stars bulletin board my students made as their first art projects. The tape letters were made by 1st graders.  I don’t know how people use painter’s tape for this technique, because it just caused my paper to rip.  I discovered the Post-it Label Roll which worked great to block out the letters. The kids painted over the label tape with a crayon … Read more…

Art Discussion Signs for Bulletin Boards

Art Discussion Signs for Bulletin Boards

I have been dreaming about how I will be setting up my art room next year, as we will be having two art rooms and I will have a lot more space!  The art discussion cards that I created have been popular and I thought that these questions would make an intriguing bulletin board. I designed 33 colorful signs with interesting art discussion prompts that can be used in classroom critiques or art history discussions.  There are 4 additional “title” … Read more…

Lego Art Projects

Lego Art Projects

Our school is building an addition, so I thought projects related to “building” would be fun.  Legos are the perfect building blocks! So, we designed our own mini-figures with this template.  I originally saw this idea from The Art Teacher’s Closet. We also stamped with Legos (idea via Lego Stamping from Filth Wizardry).  Thanks to wonderful bloggers for these two ideas!  My students LOVED them!  They were so excited about these proejcts. Place your piece of paper on top of … Read more…

Back to School Bulletin Board

Back to School Bulletin Board

Well, another school year has begun! We’ve had one week of classes and I have been pleased with my student’s behavior, effort and creativity thus far. What I was not pleased with was catching strep throat the first week of school!  I had to stay home the second day.  🙁  My daughter got sick the week before, so I that is where I got my illness from.  I am mostly back to normal now, so let’s hope the rest of … Read more…

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