Art classroom hacks

I am here today to spread the gospel of the glue sponge! If you haven’t fallen in love with glue sponges yet, then I’m guessing you haven’t tried them! I first learned about glue sponges from Smedley’s Kindergarten Smorgasbord. I thought it was a cool idea, but I also thought, “nah, I’m doing OK.” Glue sticks and bottled glue hadn’t yet become my enemies. Enter interactive notebooks. We started going through about 500 glue sticks a day. When we tried glue bottles, the phrase “dot, dot, not…

We all know how it goes, you start the year full force ready to conquer every day of class but inevitably life, stress, exhaustion, and time throw a wrench into things. Here are some awesome things I am trying to do this year that I hope I keep doing (And will try my absolute best to do so) this year and the next! PBIS! This is where our PBIS stuff happens in the Art Room. The numbers are velcro and change throughout class based on behavior (That 2 was the first day of art, UGH) the scale is…

8 Things You Need in Your Art Room to Make Your Life Easier Physical Space % %

Several years ago I made wooden cradles to hold my students’ rather large portfolios. I attended a session at the TAEA conference about building racks and the presenter gave us her plans. Wel…

Welcome to the How-To Guide for First Year Art Teachers where I give you my 10 Steps for Success! Congratulations! You got your own classroom. OH MY GOSH, you have your own classroom. Your mind and stomach start racing, both with extreme excitement and panic because now, it all just got real. You will have a lot of students, a lot of planning, and a lot of classroom to keep organized. Figuring out where to even start is a huge stress and will require a tea (or a beer) and a nap (probably…

Get your art room under control. Follow these simple, easy to follow systems of organization. #artteacher #organization #artclass

Ten Positive Art teacher hacks for the classroom that will naturally cause your students to feel safe and give them a sense of ownership and responsibility

10 Storage Hacks for the Art Room % %

We were in our art collab meeting on Wednesday morning of this week when one of the other art teachers complimented this: And then it became a brief topic of discussion. I'd actually already decided to add pencil sharpeners to this area (right by my desk), and was only waiting for my sign to be laminated. Now, that area looks like this: So, it's not the greatest picture, but hopefully you can see the crayon sharpeners at a 90 degree angle to the pencil sharpeners. Before school started, I…