Art Room Playlist

Here is my Spotify playlist. It has a ton of variety and the kids love it!

Preparing for Irma

Studio 206 is closed for at least Thursday and Friday.  My students asked if they could take their sketch books home so they can work in them while school is out. Music to my art teacher ears!

Stay safe Florida.

High Interest 6th Grade Art Project

I teach what’s called the “Wheel” here in Florida. It’s a way for incoming 6th graders to get to know the electives offered at the school. I also teach a life skills component within the course. For the short 9 weeks that I have my 6th graders in the art room, I’m doing what I can to make them fall in love with art. 

We are currently working on comic book covers. We started by analyzing comic book covers, trying to break the “comic book code”. This led to some great vocabulary development and got students used to the art criticism process. 

Once the unit is wrapped up, I will post my lesson Power Point. For now, here are some pics of the works in progress.

Whole Class Point System

Being a former gen ed teacher, I’ve tried every classroom management strategy there is. When I made the leap to teach art (best decision ever!) I was unsure of how my philosophies would transfer over. One thing that is working well is my whole class point system.

It’s nothing new, but maybe it will spark an idea for you!

• Each class starts with the word ART spelled out on the board. As long as everyone is on task and at the right conversation level, the class keeps their letters.
• If it gets too loud, or too unfocused, the class loses a letter. The first letter is a warning, the second in five minutes of silence and the last is silent class for the rest of our time together.
• I ring a bell for the warning, they know what it means.
• If a class gets 5 minutes of silence, I set a large timer. I really enforce this, otherwise it just won’t work. If a student talks during the silent period it’s an automatic consequence like a time out or lunch detention

I keep a record of how many points each class has, each letter is worth one point. I assigned seats on the first day, but when classes get 30 points, they can choose their seats. At 50, they can listen to headphones. I liken this to unlocking levels in gaming, the kids get it.

So far, so good! A class has never lost more than two letters.