K – 6 Art

Look what I found at the school bake sale! This awesome small ceramic storage container is actually a disposable  cupcake box.

The box is holding 24 painted ceramic penguins. Each figurine fits into a cupcake well. The wings and flippers fit into little grooves around the well. The pieces are really secured in there!

These disposable cupcake boxes make great storage!

The ceramic-filled cupcake box is heavy. I added a piece of masonite underneath as a tray.

Disposable bakery cupcake holder is great for organizing and storage.

Now the pieces are safely stored until the art show.

Enjoy!

I saw a great post on glazing over at The Art of Education. I tried some of their tips today on our second grader’s melted marble pinch pots. They worked so well I just had to share.

In a nutshell:

• Put one color of glaze on each table
• Match the glaze color to your table color if possible
• Put brushes directly into the glaze (genius!!!)
• Keep a piece of paper under your pot at all times – even when switching tables. This keeps your hands cleaner.
• Carry pot from table to table to change colors
• Brushes stay at their tables

In addition to the brushes, I put skewers directly into the glaze bottles. The students used the skewers to dot eyes or spots onto their animal pots.  Skewers allow more control than my brushes. I have also used the skewers to scratch lines into the glaze.

The result?

• Easy set up – no water! No little cups of glaze.
• Easy clean up – wipe the glaze bottle rims and recap.
• No color contamination (note – I was anxious and kept a sharp eye on the white glaze. It stayed clean through three classes!)
• No waste!!!!

Thanks so much to The Art of Education for sharing all your tips!

Enjoy!

Do you have a glazing tip to share?

How could something so small make such a big difference in the art room?

Foray manual pencil sharpener works great on large and small pencils and colored pencils.

I purchased seven of these Foray double-hole sharpeners, one for each of my tables. I used my electric sharpener to sharpen all the new pencils at the beginning of the school year. Guess how many times I have used my electric since? ZERO.

Foray double-hole manual sharpener.

All the kids ages 6 and older use the manual sharpeners! They put a nice sharp tip on our large pencils. They save my time, the students have more independence and the room is a little quieter.

AND they work well on colored pencils, much better than my electric pencil sharpeners.

Foray double-hole pencil sharpeners are available at Office Depot and maybe at an office supply near you.

First day of art.

Welcome to a new year in the art room. This year my room looks completely different, from layout to bulletin boards to organization, thanks to all my fellow art teacher bloggers and my dear friend Pinterest.

Now every table, supply bucket, and chair is colored coded.  Chairs are numbered as well (more art room organization photos on this post).

My value poster is made from construction paper in black, white and gray shades. Luckily, I had an O’Keeffe that matched!

Thanks to my colleague Nancy R. for the value poster idea.

Art Teacher Barbie again reigns supreme over the art room.

Every year I tell my students my dad banned Barbie dolls from our house. He felt his three daughters would turn into ‘clothes horses’ if Barbies made it through the door. So Art Teacher Barbie is my very first Barbie doll. She called my name from the toy department at Wal-Mart my first year teaching, and since then we have never been apart.

p.s. In the background you can see my new tempera cake rack (from Blick or Amazon). Hoping that will seriously reduce my clean up time.

Best wishes for a successful school year! May your kiln never explode, and may your messes be manageable.

Rina

Art classes start Monday and I just put the finishing touches on my art room. I love all the art room photos everyone is putting online. Here are a few shots from room 13!

Organizing samples:

I don’t use my filing cabinet for all my sample art projects. I store samples in boxes, one per grade level. The boxes fit perfectly in my cubbies.

Within each box, I store samples in individual manilla envelopes (I got this idea from Deep Space Sparkle).

Although I label everything, I do not have sets of beautiful full-color labels. I don’t have plastic tubs for everything (yet) – I am reusing old copy paper boxes and used manila envelopes.

Storing bulky work in progress:

Our weavings and sculptures in progress are just too bulky for table folders and flat files. Projects are stored individually in labeled gallon size Ziploc bags, clipped together by table and stored in a color-coded table box.

Color-coded table boxes store bulky projects in progress.

Organizing student work:

I have a ‘roly polies’ with one (labeled) flat drawer per class. They hold ALL the 2-D student art all school year until our spring art show. I store big boxes of watercolor paper underneath. I use the top of the cabinets as a place to dry our plaster masks and plaster sculptures.

We store student portfolios in the flat files. The are labeled with the name, grade, teacher. The student’s first initial goes in the upper right corner. This helps me find portfolios quickly.

Decorating cabinets:

Do you want to hang art on your slick laminate cabinets? I use a system of medium clear Command hooks and binder clips. It is really easy to change out art.

Tiny, clear Command hook and binder clip allows you to hang posters on laminate.

 Scrap paper:

I store scrap paper under the paper cutter, sorted by color (thanks to The Art of Ed for this tip).

Scrap paper is sorted by color and stored under the paper cutter.

Encyclopedia:

Even though my 1975 (!) childhood encyclopedia set is out of date, it has TONS of photos and illustrations perfect for reference. As a bonus, it teaches kids how to use reference books.

My childhood encyclopedia set has tons of reference photos.

More art room photos next time!

More art room organization tips on this post.