Easy Art Room Jobs and Cleanup!

An art room can't be kept cleaned and organized without getting your students to pitch in. Clean-up can be a time suck if it is not planned, practiced and a routine. I assign art room jobs to help with cleanup.

Fall Projects: Jackson Pollock Paper

Another one of my favorite fall projects is making Jackson Pollock paper with my first graders. We learn about color mixing, warm colors and the artist Jackson Pollock.
I start the project by asking students how they think this artwork was made. Be prepared for really creative answers! I could listen to my students discuss and critique artwork all day, they have the best imaginations!

I then ask them how big they think it is, then show a picture of me next to one of his works.
After a quick demo I let the students paint like Jackson Pollock. I have stations set up around the room. First ,  the roller station. They use these textured sponge rollers and red and yellow paint and paint on a 12x18 paper. I go heavy on the yellow paint and just a bit of red in the trays. Once again, write their names with sharpies and have them flip the paper or not paint their name.

One of Those Days...

It was one of those days...

My lovely new markers that I have fell in love with (Papermate Flair for the pen nerds out there) are not waterproof. I tested these out and put some water on them and they didn't bleed. 

But after labeling 40 coffee filters which accidentally got wet on the trip to the Pre-K room I found out they weren't. 

DIY Upcycled T-Shirt Project

My husband's birthday was last week. He is a musician and has acquired a surplus of band tees over the years. I always wanted to make him a tshirt quilt but lack the patience to hover over a sewing machine for hours. He recently put a bunch of these shirts in our donate bin. I had a brainstorm and decide to upcycle these shirts into some wall art.

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Starting the School Year in the Art Room!

One of the best things about being the art teacher is that the first day of the school year just picks up where we left off last year. Besides a few new faces each year and a few changes in the art room we really only need to review instead of establishing routines and procedures. 

I decided to start the year off with International Dot Day.  I showed the kids this video of the book being read so they can see and appreciate the illustrations. We discussed the moral of the story The Dot by Peter Reynolds which is just trying and seeing where it takes you!

Students were pretty excited to be able to paint on the first day of art class too! 

Back to School-Art Room Prep

My school is finally getting AC! Unfortunately this means that the entire school has been undergoing some major construction and teachers were unable to get into there rooms. And if you could get in they often looked like this...

Not much to do here...

I went in today in hopes of getting in and getting some work done. With just two days until students arrive I was getting antsy and my to do list was growing!