Free art lessons for art teachers to use in the art classroom.

The Circle Game asks students to come up with as many different things as they can from one circle. I thought this activity was really fun! However, my elementary students were not that interested. Most of my kids' papers were dull circles with a scribble on them. I think older kids might "get it" better. I have included the handout from Ande Cook's Art Starters as well as my lesson plan with all the directions for a sub. The Ande Cook handouts were part of a SchoolArts subscription, or you can get her book: Art Starters

The daily practice of art history warm-ups will develop art criticism skills while investigating a broad range of artists throughout history.

Art History & Seasonal Crafts Phonics & Word Work Sentence Building Kits Fairy Tales Sets Poetry Sets Printing Workbooks Sight Words Sets Writing Prompts Thanks for the wonderful feedback! This best seller is a collection of 12 lessons about art history, ranging from […]

This FREE handout is a great activity for warm-ups or even early finishers. This handout was inspired by the book Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg. Here is the BLANK version. This is a good opti…

This year, the paperwork has become more cumbersome than ever! I'm not sure how it is elsewhere, but in NY, it feels like my district is trying to be the overachievers because we are being asked to do things for APPR that other districts haven't even thought of, particularly in the area of the specials teachers! One of the things we had to do this year was choose one class to be observed in. I would personally rather have my observations take place over all of the grade levels I teach, but my union won't let me. Since I'm teaching high school this year, I'd love to be observed there to get feedback, but I was still required to choose one area (and this is all from what our union has decided...sometimes I think they think more about the core area teachers than they do the special area teachers!). I would have chosen a high school level but I'm still being observed by the elementary principal (which doesn't really matter) but the next aspect of our observations is what made me stick with elementary because it will be less work for me in the long run, especially as I get closer to popping out this baby! ;) With whichever class or subject area we have chosen to be observed in, we have to fill out weekly lesson plans (and as rumor has it, next year we will have to do this for ALL of our subject areas/grade levels). And I don't mean just copy off our plan book anymore. We have to have full, written out lessons. If I chose Studio Art, I would have to have complete, written lessons for every day of the week, including daily objectives, bell ringers, exit slips, etc. While I'm working towards being able to do that, I am certainly not doing that now. By choosing an elementary class, my lessons are condensed down to 2-3 day lessons and more manageable to write out. Considering I have 12 different classes to prepare for weekly, I'm taking the easy way out! Last year I created and started using this lesson plan format to write my lessons and organize my grade level curriculum. I printed out a bunch of these templates and simply hand-wrote my lessons, so I was technically already doing this. The administrators liked my template and used it to create a common core template for everyone to use. Of course, when they did that, they left out all of the my art stuff. Now, I had planned on using these templates for my substitute when I go out on maternity leave so for me, the art parts were way more important than the Marzano stuff. I asked if I could alter my original template to include what was missing from theirs, and thankfully, they agreed. Of course, I ended up having to do two revisions because they wanted the Marzano stuff on the front, but I'm still happy with my ending template. This is my new lesson plan template. I have posted this to the SmARTteacher as well so you can find it there. If you open it in Word, you can simply click on the boxes in each category to mark what you are using, and then simply type in all of the information. I created a slightly different one for each level based on what the different listening strands are for K-2, as well as the basic common core math and ELA standards for each grade level. This is my district's lesson plan template for everyone to use.

Art handouts and worksheets are invaluable tools for young artists and educators looking to unleash their creativity. These resources provide a structured platform for learning and experimentation, allowing budding artists to explore various techniques, concepts, and subjects. Whether you're a parent searching for engaging activities to inspire your child's artistic journey or a teacher seeking educational materials to enhance your art curriculum, our collection of art handouts and worksheets is sure to be a valuable entity that cultivates a love for art while honing essential skills.

One of things I try to do in the summer besides taking more time to read and enjoy my summer is start doing some planning for the next year....

Here is a sub lesson adapted from a handout in Ande Cook's Art Starters book called "A Fun Game." Basically, the artist is being asked to draw their interpretations of several different things. It's fun! It's a Fun Game! I wrote out all the directions and everything a sub would need to know to teach this lesson. I used this for grades 2nd grade and up. The Ande Cook handouts were part of a SchoolArts subscription, or you can get her book: Art Starters

My students will be reading the poem The Little Land by Robert Louis Stevenson. First they will read and interpret the poem without illustrations and tell me what they think it means. Then they will look at the illustrations below as we read the poem as a class and, drawing from their own experiences, either from books or movies, tell me if their ideas on the meaning of the poem have changed. We will discuss movies they are familiar with, such as 'A Bug's Life' and 'Honey I Shrunk The Kids'. We will then discuss how illustrations help the reader to visualize the meaning of a poem. Using the reference materials provided by the teacher, students will then envision themselves as being very small. They will create an illustration of what the world would look like from an insect's point of view. English Language Arts Standards,Reading: Literature http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RL/5/ Colored Pencil drawing by Rachel Wintemberg, The Helpful Art Teacher When at home alone I sit And am very tired of it, I have just to shut my eyes To go sailing through the skies-- Illustration by Jessie Willcox Smith To go sailing far away To the pleasant Land of Play; To the fairy land afar Where the Little People are; Where the clover-tops are trees, And the rain-pools are the seas, And the leaves, like little ships, Sail about on tiny trips; And above the Daisy tree Through the grasses, High o'erhead the Bumble Bee Hums and passes. In that forest to and fro I can wander, I can go; See the spider and the fly, And the ants go marching by, Watercolor by Rachel Wintemberg Carrying parcels with their feet Down the green and grassy street. Illustration by Gertrude Elliot I can in the sorrel sit Where the ladybird alit. I can climb the jointed grass And on high See the greater swallows pass In the sky, Drawing by Rachel Wintemberg,The Helpful Art Teacher And the round sun rolling by Heeding no such things as I. Through that forest I can pass Till, as in a looking-glass, Humming fly and daisy tree And my tiny self I see, Painted very clear and neat On the rain-pool at my feet. Watercolor by Rachel Wintemberg, The Helpful Art Teacher Should a leaflet come to land Drifting near to where I stand, Watercolor by Rachel Wintemberg Straight I'll board that tiny boat Round the rain-pool sea to float. Illustration by Julie C. Pratt Little thoughtful creatures sit On the grassy coasts of it; Little things with lovely eyes See me sailing with surprise. Some are clad in armour green-- (These have sure to battle been!)-- Some are pied with ev'ry hue, Black and crimson, gold and blue; Watercolor by Rachel Wintemberg Some have wings and swift are gone;-- But they all look kindly on. Watercolor by Rachel Wintemberg, The Helpful Art Teacher Watercolor by Rachel Wintemberg, The Helpful Art Teacher When my eyes I once again Open, and see all things plain: High bare walls, great bare floor; Great big knobs on drawer and door; Great big people perched on chairs, Stitching tucks and mending tears, Each a hill that I could climb, And talking nonsense all the time-- Illustration by Arthur Rackham O dear me, That I could be A sailor on a the rain-pool sea, A climber in the clover tree, And just come back a sleepy-head, Late at night to go to bed. Illustration by Jessie Willcox Smith How can asking students to illustrate a poem help them to become not only better artists but better writers? Studying writing that evokes clear visual imagery and invites readers to explore the imagination, like the Robert Louis Stevenson poem above, is key to helping students become both better artists and better writers. Resources: The art/writing connection How to Be a Better Writer: 6 Tips From Harvard’s Steven Pinker http://time.com/3584611/write-better-tips-from-harvard/ Quotes from the Time Magazine article linked above: "Our brain works a particular way; so what rules do we need to know to write the way the brain best understands? Steven Pinker is a cognitive scientist and linguist at Harvard. He’s also on the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary. Steven was recently ranked as one of the top 100 most eminent psychologists of the modern era." His number one piece of advice: "Be Visual: One third of the human brain is dedicated to vision. So trying to make the reader “see” is a good goal and being concrete has huge effects." Via The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century: "We are primates, with a third of our brains dedicated to vision, and large swaths devoted to touch, hearing, motion, and space. For us to go from “I think I understand ” to “I understand ,” we need to see the sights and feel the motions. Many experiments have shown that readers understand and remember material far better when it is expressed in concrete language that allows them to form visual images…" A key element to 'close reading' is inviting students to explore the visual imagery that a well written poem evokes in their minds. One way to explore this visual imagery is to draw it. At the University of Pennsylvania, freshman students are taught how to do 'close readings' of classic pieces of literature. Here is one piece of advice they are given their freshman year: "METAPHORS and IMAGES: Make a mental list of the images that pile up in passage. How do these metaphors or images affect how you read?" http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Teaching/101/closereading.html The Helpful Art Teacher says; why not create that 'mental list' by illustrating a passage with a beautiful drawing? Students can demonstrate how closely they have read by including as much detail as possible. Related open ended question: What would you look like from a bug's point of view? If you were very small what would ordinary people look like? Using a camera, cell phone or tablet, get down on the ground and take some photographs of the world from a miniature person's perspective. How does the world look different when you look at it from another perspective? What are some other perspectives or points of view that you can use to explore the world? What about a bird's eye view? To learn more about 'Bird's eye view vs. bug's eye view', click here. Art Gallery: Watercolor Painting by a 7th Grade Student Art Gallery: Drawings by 8th grade students The 8th grader used the IPad app PS Touch and one of my photographs to add a background to her colored pencil drawing 7th Grade Drawings Some students used the iPad App, PS Touch to digitally add color Colored Pencil Drawings by 6th Grade Students The Littles: complete animated series: The Borrowers Movie:

The Hunger Games Lesson Plan Ideas: engaging and easy to implement activities for this famous dystopian novel. Free downloads!

The Renaissance was a period of rapid change in Europe between 1300 and 1600 that influenced art, culture, politics and medicine.

Avoid last-minute stress and fill your music sub tub with these easy and meaningful activities. The best music sub plans are ready in advance!

The ultimate curriculum platform for K-12 art teachers. FLEX gives art teachers access to a rich library of standards-aligned curriculum materials so they can save time and focus on teaching and student learning.

Microscopes are a lot of fun for exploring all sorts of things, but it’s important to know how to use them correctly and what all the parts are called. A School Called Home has a printable la…

Here you find all details of lesson plan template and we are providing a sample lesson plan so download and use weekly lesson plan templates.

I created this culture jars art lesson for an Art and World Cultures class, and continue to use it in art classes because it is so well received. The word

Download this free blank lesson plan template in Word or PDF. Designed by Top Hat's instructional design team for use in your university classroom.

Here’s an archive of our downloadable activities so far- feel free to download and print off any of these to use yourself or with your club / group / scouts troop / evil supervillain society&…