A free resource for art teachers and students Choice Board Download; Please keep attribution. File Size: 3956 kb File Type: jpg Download File What to do when you're stuck for ideas? ​Choose one element from each column to generate an idea for an art exploration or to plan a lesson.   Choices can be purposeful to meet the requirements of curriculum, or they can be random to promote exploration. When one is stuck for ideas, this can help break through.   The choice board can also be used to break down an image into its components for analysis or discussion. For example, van ..read more

Why Meeting Project Expectations Earns 90% (A)  ​I know students, for the most part, want to earn their “A” and anything less is a disappointment. Never mind that “C” is supposed to be average, or “B” is above average, they want that “A.”  I also think it’s unfair to “grade” artwork based on an emotional or arbitrary scale of good to bad. There is value in a Basquiat, a Picasso, and a da Vinci approach to art. Does a Jackson Pollock deserve less credit than Chuck Close because of some skillset? It's like asking is a rabbit better than a fish.    I set rigorous goals in my ..read more

A new school year is an opportunity for a fresh start! Having fun in Japan to get away from teaching a bit and rejuvenate! Summer is a time to detox, rethink, and recharge your batteries. I find I need a month to travel (I went to Japan this summer) and have some quality “me-time,” and then the next month I am relaxing but also reflecting on my year and bookmarking ideas I want to try next year. I have been teaching for 35 years and I still looking forward to trying new lessons with my students. (And new ways to make classroom management a bit better, ‘casue we can all improve there.)   ..read more

Insuring you are covering required content. In some schools you may be required to cite how you are incorporating state/national standards, and/or your curriculum. This can seem a bit overwhelming for us visual learners, but if you are teaching art with a broad array of supplies, connecting with cultures, careers, history, artists (both historical and contemporary), incorporate some vocabulary, techniques, tools, and student do some writing and reflecting in your practice, you will likely be covering everything in your standards and curriculum.   You can gain some ideas for lessons by lo ..read more

My blog began in 2014 because... I started this blog because I passionately believe (and have the research to back it up) that Art is THE MOST important class a child can have in school. I KNOW that nearly everything in elementary school can be taught through art, most of middle school too. I know too that art enhances student's understanding of concepts and connections in high school. My students score, on average, 155 points HIGHER on their SAT exams because of my choice-based approach to art education. I created this blog to post FREE information to art educators to understand their worth ..read more

Consider chaperoning a small school trip, and go for FREE!  Do your students love all tings Japan? Video Games Manga & Anime Martial Arts Robots & More? I actually lived in Osaka Japan for a year an exchange student for my junior year of college at Kansai Gaidai University. This summer I had a chance to return and share an adventure with my spouse. My students overheard me and asked why I had not organized a school trip to Japan?   I assumed it would be too expensive, and when I looked at the pre-packaged tours, I was not thrilled with the stereotypical options. I lived t ..read more

A legacy project tied to contemporary artist Loui Jover Click image above to see more of Loui Jover's collage artworks which were the inspiration for this lesson. Every year I have my advanced classes, Art 3 and 4 create a legacy project. This usually takes the form of a mural for our school. As we explored our building, we noted that the hallway for our history rooms was bare and boring so we decided to take that are on this year.  Our history classes hallway Every location has challenges, and in this one, it is narrow but has heavy traffic. A mural would get scratched up, but indivi ..read more

An exercise in intuitive surrealism. I tried a Pareidolia lesson from teacher John Zilewicz from Facebook, on my last full day of class and my students were focused and silent! Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon that causes people to perceive ambiguous stimuli as meaningful visual objects. For example, people may see faces in landscapes, buildings, and furniture. For example, a house with a pattern that resembles a face can trigger an emotional response. I told my students that if they needed a point on their final grade to go from 79 to an 80, or an 89 to 90 I could us ..read more

Why I don't participate in art competitions seeking free student work. Many art contests are exploitive opportunities to get free art by organizations that could be paying an artist a living wage, but instead get free submissions from children. Once in a long while I get “voluntold” to participate in an art contest by administration, but for the most part, I ignore contest emails especially when the prize is laughably small or nonexistent.   For example, I got an email from our local Red Cross for a mural competition. Within the email it said, “The selected mural will serve as a visual r ..read more

Letting students show you what they are ready to handle.  Some teachers like to dive into painting or clay at the beginning of the year as a way to create excitement for their class. If you are a new teacher this would be a horrible mistake. I have been teaching for more than 30 years and I’d rather stick forks in my eyes that do a painting lesson with a group of high school students I do not know, who do not know me, nor my expectations. You may also be building in unrealistic expectations and rewarding fun over the educational processes. I did a POST going over scaffolding projects, bu ..read more