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When I worked in a K-8 school, my best teacher friend the school librarian and I had wanted to plan a collaborative trip for our students to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art as it would be a great cross-disciplinary trip and opportunity for multiple lessons based upon the books and artwork displayed in the museum. Unfortunately the school we were working at did not have the funding or rescoures allowing for us to both go with a large group of students, we decided to go for a visit two summers ago. It was an adorable museum located on a beautiful campus. It is great for a day trip if you are in New England looking to take your PreK-grade 2 aged children during the summer! Located in Amherst, MA.

Grade: 8

Artist: MC Escher

Materials: Pencils, erasers, scissors, index cards, newsprint paper, black Sharpie markers, white drawing paper

Teacher Prep: Make an example for each step ​

Day 1: Introduce positive and negative space using Prezi. Have students sketch 3 different symmetrical insects, with a symmetrical pattern. Once students have sketched 3 designs, have them choose one insect that they will use for their drawing. Students will fold an index card in half and then draw 1/2 of the insect to create a stencil. They will cut the stencil out. (Make sure they write their names on their stencils once they cut them out!) After this, students can begin tracing the insects on their white paper. I have done this lesson with two variations. Variation 1: Students trace the insects with at least 6 overlapping insects. Variation 2: Students trace the insects with no overlaps, and use a single geometric shape (that they create with an index card stencil) to overlap. I prefer variation 1. 

Day 2: Students continue to trace their insects from the stencils. Have students trace the outline of the insects WITHOUT the pattern drawn, in Sharpie. Students will then draw the symmetrical pattern inside of the insects in Sharpie. When the student completes their patterns, they will label what is positive and what is negative with pencil using “B” for black and “W” for white. Remind students that when they are using the Sharpie markers, they will NOT trace over the “B”s and “W”s. Keep in mind, that whenever the insects overlap with another insect(variation 1), or the geometric shape (variation 2), the positive and negative flip flop. What would normally be white in their design will become black for that overlapping section only, and what would normally be black becomes white in that overlapping section. ​

Day 3-4: Students continue working on their designs. When everything is labeled correctly, (encourage students to have you check over their labeling before working with Sharpies), the students will begin shading in any areas they labeled as “B” and leave the “W” empty. Once completed, students erase any “W” marks, and stray pencil marks. Students fill out self-evaluation rubrics. ​

Tips: Do EVERYTHING in baby steps! I tried demonstrating the entire lesson together in one day and it was a complete disaster…students rushed to get Sharpies and we wasted a lot of ink and paper that semester 🙁 You live and you learn. I was proud of the students’ work the semester after once the lesson was revamped. Also, remind students that they will be using Sharpie markers to color in their designs, and that the Sharpies are thicker than a pencil tip…I had several students who came up with intricate designs that were gorgeous, but not realistic for this project as the Sharpie would not be able to show the detail, and it would be difficult to show the reversal of positive/negative space. I have a downloadable copy of the steps and instructions on my TPT Page HERE (great for students who were absent on instruction day)

I also have these steps written out and laminated for students who may have been absent and missed some directions, or just need to view them at their tables, which has been a huge help!

Lesson plans. L.P’s. Whatever you might call them, they’re always in the back of our minds…especially when you have to submit them weekly to your administration. Here’s a screen shot of the form I use for my lessons. I add times, dates (under the days) and class/teacher names in each box above the objectives and fill in each week as needed on Microsoft Word.

Tip: I save it as a PDF before sending it off, and always print off a copy for my curriculum mapping binder :-)​

You can head over to my TpT account and download it for FREE! 

Grade: 7

Artist: Louise Nevelson

Materials: Cardboard boxes/scraps, glue, scissors, paint, sponge paintbrushes, cups for paint, cups for water, paper towel, sink for cleanup

Teacher Prep: Collect cardboard (boxes, paper towel tubes, shoe boxes, etc). Cut cardboard boxes into bases for students to select from, label bins (one for bases, one for scraps), distribute cardboard into bins

Objectives: Students will be able to identify works belonging to artist Louise Nevelson, define “form”, and plan and create a cardboard/mixed media sculpture.​

Day 1: Begin by introducing the artist using Power Point Presentation or Prezi

After the lesson introduction and showing examples of the artists work, and students work, students independently read the artist biography and complete question packet (link for bio and questions, and CT State Standards on my TpT page)

Day 2: Demonstrate different joints and how to glue the cardboard together. Go over rubric and requirements (low, medium, and high relief). Students who need to complete biography packets do so, students who completed questions may select one base to begin their sculptures.​

Day 3-4: Students continue working on relief sculptures. Once completed, they select one color to paint their monochromatic sculpture.​

Day 5: Paint sculpture, or add second coat of paint to sculptures/touch up spots, fill out self assessment rubric.

Tips: Pre-cut the bases for students (to avoid sculptures being too small or too large), have boxes labeled clearly so that students can sort bases vs scraps. This is a great project for when supplies are short, or you have a small classroom budget as the main supply (cardboard) can be found or donated to your classroom.

Grade: 7

Artist: Huichol tribe in Mexico, Vincent Van Gogh

Materials: yarn, scissors, liquid glue, paper, colored pencils, crayons, pencils, erasers, Starry Night handouts

Teacher Prep: print out copies of Starry Night and laminate for students to reference at their tables, collect yarn

Day 1: Introduce the students to the works of Vincent Van Gogh using Prezi. Have students disect the painting Starry Night. Introduce Nierikas, their purpose, and cultural background of Huichol people. Show several examples of Nierikas. Explain to students that they will be “simplifying” Van Gogh’s painting to basic shapes and forms to create a Nierika. Students begin examining Starry Night in pairs and sketching a rough draft of their own interpretation.

Day 2: Students continue sketching their interpretation of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Remind students to simplify shapes, and not use tiny details, as they will not be able to show using the yarns. Once students have completed the sketch, I had my students color in a “map” of which colored yarns they would use in each place. With my first group I did not have them color in the drawings and found they were confused as they neared the end of the project with the yarn as to which colored yarns to place where. 

Day 3-9: Students continue gluing yarn to complete Nierika. ​

Final Day: Students fill out self assessment rubric. Gallery walk/critique of peer works. 

Tips: I did this as a lesson following soda straw weaving to get rid of yarn scraps (see my post about soda straw weaving here). Some of the yarn came from leftover project materials, but most of it came from friends and family members that knit and crochet and graciously save their odds and ends scraps for my classroom (shoutout to you). For one group of students, they finished this project in a little over a week, the other group I did this project with took over two weeks. You really have to figure out the duration for your students as you work on this one. Remind students that less glue is more! The yarn will not stick to the paper if the students use a lot of glue at once. I had students work one strand of yarn at a time. The students who covered an entire section with glue at once and tried to work one yarn at a time had a lot of difficulty as the yarn would move around in the glue puddles. This project takes a lot of patience, and I had to motivate my students a lot towards the final days of the project. 

Class Dojo is all the rage. Google it and you will find hundreds of support pages, instructions, incentive/prize ideas, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Class Dojo, however, in the three years I have utilized the resource, I have found it difficult to reach my middle school students (particularly in 7th and 8th grade). Some students appreciated the Dojo program, while the majority of the middle school students found the Dojo “monsters” to be juvenile. Pretty much by the final semester when I was teaching K-8, I gave up using Class Dojo with middle school students completely. One summer, I thought back to what rewards and incentives my teachers used while I was in middle school. I remembered that the majority of my teachers used in-house (meaning specific to their classroom only) incentive dollars that we earned based on a variety of criteria posted in the classroom, and we were able to “cash in” our “dollars” for prizes. I spent a large chunk of that week searching for art specific or art themed “dollars” that I could use in my classroom this fall, and only found one. The one I found online was great, however the dollars were quite small (about half the size of an actual dollar bill), and I felt that students would be more likely to lose them. I went with the theme of Salvador Dali (because why not?). Below is my design and the rewards that I will use this fall. You can download a PDF copy of my Dali Dollars on my TeachersPayTeachers Page.

The first year that utilized the Dali Dollars, I had students save them to “cash in” for a prize of their choice and had the points posted in our classroom at all times:

10 Dali Dollars: piece of candy

25 Dali Dollars: eat lunch in art classroom

50 Dali Dollars: free draw time (last 10 minutes of class)

75 Dali Dollars: swap seats with anyone for one class period

100 Dali Dollars: bring grade up by 5 points

I found that this wasn’t enough incentive for my students, and many were losing their Dali Dollars before they could cash them in.

Instead, last school year I began treating Dali Dollars as raffle tickets. I give out Dali Dollars as rewards and still use them as incentives for good behavior. I also use them as rewards for students bringing in supply donations. You can read more about how I receive donations here. Students write their full name and class name on the Dali Dollars whenever they want to add them into our raffle bucket (a recycled animal cracker bucket from BJs). Students can choose to add their raffle tickets as they receive them, or save them until their chances are greater- when they have more, or when there are less competitors in the bucket. On the last school day of each month, I choose one winner from the bucket during last period. Whichever student’s name is chosen gets to pick something out of the prize basket (candy, toys, etc).

I am pleased to say that after years of teaching art full time, I finally have enough lesson plans developed for the middle school grades to divide the lessons into three separate binders (one for 6, 7, and 8). Even though I have a long way to go to have a fully developed curriculum, I am making progress. My goal last year was to create lesson plan binders for each grade and include any printouts, examples, stencils, etc in plastic sleeves to become more organized. Going with my Nautical/Beach/Greek Island themed classroom, I found these adorable, editable binder covers off Teachers Pay Teachers. They were created by Southern Grown- Southern Taught. She has some adorable covers, and best of all they’re free. You should definitely check her page out!! I put a direct link to my favorite cover here.

One piece of advice that veteran teachers gave me when I began teaching was to document everything. Having so many students each year, it is difficult to keep track of which parents you spoke to, and which students served detentions, etc. In previous years, I have used a really cute Nautical Parent Communication Log form that I found on TPT, but found that it did not cater to the art classroom, as it was designed for each student to have their own page. With around 500 students, this would take up a lot of paper. I created my own less decorative communication log that you can find on my Teachers Pay Teachers page here. I plan to print one page out for each class, and place it in their section in my attendance binder. When the page gets filled (which it hopefully will not), I just add another to their class section.