The Teaching Palette

“Shhh” Noise Control

Posted on 29. Jan, 2010 by Theresa McGee in All Posts, Clssrm Mgmt, Off-task Behavior, Positive Reinforcement, Tech Stuff

I love the buzz and energy of an art room filled with students actively involved in the creative process.  Because of this, I allow my students to talk during art production, as long as they remain on-task and the noise level doesn’t become disruptive.  However, some of my classes have a harder time with this freedom than others.  Enter . . . “Noise Control“. This iPhone app has been very effective during times when I need students to keep noise down and raise concentration. While I can’t promise this will forever solve noise issues, a little extra help never hurts.  Watch the video below to see how it works:

Can’t see video above? Click here.

Here’s a few tips to get started:

Artsonia: More Than Just An Online Art Gallery

Posted on 04. Nov, 2009 by Theresa McGee in All Posts, Positive Reinforcement, Tech Stuff

If you’re an art educator, chances are that you have heard of or even have been using Artsonia as a place to “digitally hang” student artwork.   When I started using Artsonia six years ago, I knew it would be good for my students; what I didn’t know at the time was how it would become an amazing art advocacy tool.

Artsonia has become better than any student art show I could host; it reaches more family and friends, regardless of geographic distance or busy schedule, communicates art concepts in project descriptions, reinforces student technology use, and generates funds for your program. It does all that . . . without all the staples and tape.

The benefits breakdown:

Ok, sounds good but. . .
. . . well here are some of the nuts and bolts to help you get you started.

Can’t see video above? Click here.

Permission slips. Depending on your school policy, you may be required to get permission slips for participating artists.  Make your own or download and customize one of these templates: Casual or Formal (Microsoft Word format). Be sure to include a space for parent email addresses on your permission slip. Increasing participation from family and friends is the key to success in Artsonia.  It is worth the extra time to enter emails – parents get an email each time artwork is published or comments are posted, continually keeping them in touch with the learning going on in your classroom.

Volunteers. I started using volunteers to help me last year (I don’t know why I waited so long).  I keep a bin to hold artwork ready to photograph along with a binder holding class lists, and a camera (with extra batteries).  When artwork is ready, I send out an email to my volunteer list.  The first volunteer to “Reply All” agrees to photograph and digitally crop the artwork.  The only step left is uploading – something I still prefer to do myself, but certainly doable for a volunteer.  In the fall I do a training session and provide this Photography Tip Sheet and Guidelines for volunteers to reference.

Start slow and set a goal. My first year participating in Artsonia I promised to put up one piece of art for each student.  I ended up adding more, but I felt like I didn’t raise any expectations too high for the students or myself.

Do you use Artsonia?  Please add your school page and any tips in the comments area below.

Whole Brain Teaching

Posted on 01. Oct, 2009 by Guest Author in All Posts, Challenging Students, Clean-up and Transition, Clssrm Mgmt, Educators in Art, Off-task Behavior, Positive Reinforcement

The following is a guest post written by Katie Jarvis. She has been teaching art for nine years and currently teaches at Cameron Elementary in Alexandria, Virginia.

At the beginning of every year, art teacher’s everywhere make up a “rules poster” to review with students on the first day of classes. Throughout the year I would find that the students would claim to forget or not know the rules. While researching art room rules last year I came across a teacher on Youtube, Chris Biffle, a college professor who taught what he called Whole Brain Teaching.

How does it work? At the beginning of every class the students and I recite the art room rules. The rules have hand motions and each week we change the style in which we say them- squeaky voice, deep voice, sad, happy, fast, cowboy, etc. The kids love it! In fact if I try to skip over doing the rules even my 6th graders complain.

I created a video to illustrate how I teach these rules on the first day of art.  Trouble viewing video below? Click here.

There is also a scoreboard to help with classroom management. I mark “smiley faces” and  ”sad faces” on the board as the class earns them (see monkeys in image on left). When the class earns a smile they get to cheer. When the class earns a sad face everyone groans.  The points are tallied at the end of each class and a gold paintbrush is awarded for more smiles than frowns, a silver paintbrush for an equal number of smiles and frowns, or no brush for more frowns than smiles. Four paintbrushes earn the class a free art day. Each silver brush is worth 1/2 a gold brush (2 silvers = 1 gold)

The most effective tool I’ve learned from Whole Brain Teaching is getting the students attention. When I say “Class” they say “Yes!” I vary the way I say class to keep them on their toes. For example if I say “Classsity, Class” they respond “Yessity, yes!”

Whole Brain Teaching involves lots of hand gestures and verbal responses from students to keep them engaged and entertained. Using WBT creates a “peaceful classroom full of orderly fun”. Students have more fun following my rules, since I switched to Whole Brain Teaching, rather than ignoring them.

An Alternative to Adobe: Aviary’s Free Design Tools

Posted on 18. Jul, 2009 by Hillary Andrlik in All Posts, Cool+Creative, In The News, Multimedia, Neat Video, Organization and Preparation, Positive Reinforcement, Reviews, Tech Stuff, Techniques, Technology and Gadgets, Tools and Miscellaneous

If you’re looking for the image editing power of Photoshop or Illustrator without the hefty price tag you may want to consider trying the Aviary Suite.  It’s a free web 2.0 technology with a pro version available for $24.99 a year. Aviary is not only an image editing tool but it’s also a visual social network.

Users maintain a profile, contacts, favorites, access to chat boards, tutorials and more. Images created in the Aviary Suite can be shared with the community or kept private in a user account, and then saved in a variety of formats or downloaded to your computer.

Plus, users can import images from a URL, Aviary Library, Flickr, Picasa or Facebook directly into any of Aviary’s five programs – Phoenix, Falcon, Peacock, Toucan and Raven.

Phoenix does image editing and has tools like layers, masks, effects, undo history, and more. Peacock is what Aviary calls their “visual laboratory”. It features tools like generators, effects and controllers. Toucan is their color swatches and palettes. It features many of the usual color palette tools but what really was interesting to me was their color deficiency preview tool. It allows you to choose from a list of color vision deficiencies and see how someone who is color blind would distinguish your color palette. It would be a great way to teach students how other people see the world. Toucan is a simple tool, but in conjunction with the other programs in the Aviary Suite you can create some amazing images. Raven is their vector editor program and the first of its kind on the web.  It allows you not only to create complex vector art but to carefully scale and create logos, clip-art, large print ready graphics, and t-shirt and clothing designs.

The newest program is an image markup tool called Falcon. It allows you to capture images from your desktop or a web page and edit them in your browser. It is similar to Skitch or Jing but with additional capabilities since it can be used in conjunction with Aviary’s other programs. Just install Talon, a Firefox extension for Aviary, and you can quickly annotate, mark, crop and resize your captured images. Or you can transfer the images to any of the other Aviary programs for more in-depth editing. Falcon would be a great tool to have students critique an image of their own, a classmates or from a pool of stock photos.

If you teach a computer graphics program at a middle or high school and are looking for an exceptional resource or additional tools to extend beyond the classroom lab, Aviary might be a solution for your program.  Students don’t have to stop creating once they leave the lab since they can log on and design anywhere there is an Internet connection.

Below are two videos featuring Aviary’s Raven and Falcon programs.

(Trouble viewing this video? Try this link.)

(Trouble viewing this video? Try this link.)

Magic Pocket Name

Posted on 28. Feb, 2009 by Hillary Andrlik in All Posts, Challenging Students, Clssrm Mgmt, Off-task Behavior, Positive Reinforcement

There are all kinds of behavior incentive systems. Not all are practical for the art room where you literally have hundreds of students passing through your room each week. With the high number of students and the limited amount of contact time, what can effectively track behavior, motivate a class and target a specific undesirable behavior? Well, you might want to try the “Magic Pocket Name,” a simple but effective incentive program that I picked up from my colleagues. It can work in concert with other behavior systems you might already have in place.

It works by focusing on a specific undesirable class behavior such as talking without raising their hand, putting their own supplies away without being prompted or keeping hands and feet to themselves in line. For my classes it was paying attention and not talking any time I gave directions. My goal was to get students to focus their attention faster so that the class could receive directions and start working as quickly as possible.

Here’s the rules as you can explain to the class:

1. Tell the students that you’ve picked one student and written his/her name on a piece of paper or a customized ticket, which has become the “Magic Pocket Name”.
2. Put that ticket in your pocket and explain to the class that every student will eventually be the Magic Pocket Name.
3. At future classes, remind the students that you have a new Magic Pocket Name – perhaps let them see that you’ve written it and are putting it in your pocket.
4. **IMPORTANT: Never announce the name. Since no one knows if they are the “Magic Pocket Name” they all stay super quiet.
5. Throughout the class, secretly watch that specific student to determine whether they were paying attention, following directions, etc. (or whatever behavior you wish).
6. If the Magic Pocket Name student demonstrated good behavior, announce their name in line at the end of class.  I’ve found that the rest of the class will show support and applaud the winning student.  It’s really cute.
7. Tell the students that that student’s ticket will go into a weekly drawing to win a prize from the prize box, or something similar.  Each class should have their own prize drawing with multiple winners.
8. If the Magic Pocket Name student was not cooperating or demonstrating the key behavior you desired, simply announce to the class that there is no Magic Pocket Name winner today.

**Now, this is important, you never say the name of a student who “lost” the Magic Pocket Name. First, it could potentially have negative consequences by embarassing the student. Second, by keeping the name unknown, they all reflect on their own behavior. It makes them think about their own actions during class. It also helps you rotate your attention through out the class for monitoring student behavior and gives you another piece of data for assesing student behavior. I simply make a note in my grade book to keep track of the Magic Pocket Names. On the other hand, when a student “wins” the Magic Pocket Name, it reinforces their positive actions and develops class comraderie through encouragement as they often remind one another to be on their best behavior.  It’s a simple system that you can use on a regular basis or selectivley with challenging classes.

Odd Art Jobs

Posted on 19. Feb, 2009 by Hillary Andrlik in All Posts, Clean-up and Transition, Clssrm Mgmt, Off-task Behavior, Organization and Preparation, Positive Reinforcement

There are 10 minutes remaining in art class and everyone is working hard on their latest art project except for your two chronic early finishers. It never fails that some students work faster then others. When students have extra unfocused time this leaves an opportunity for behavior problems to develop. What can you do with students who finish early?

Since you never know how many students will finish early or how much time will be left in the class you might consider utilizing an “Odd Art Jobs” chart.

What are odd art jobs?

They are all those little things that eat up a lot of time and energy, which could be focused on creating great lessons, grading or helping other students. The art room wouldn’t function if these tasks weren’t completed but really anyone could get them done. An odd job could be anything from sorting scrap boxes to labeling artwork. Another added benefit is that your students take ownership and pride over the art room, its equipment and school displays.

The type of odd art jobs that you let your students do is totally dependent on how your classroom is structured. You should also take into account the characteristics of your student population. One year you may have a amazingly independent group of fifth graders that are responsible enough to look at a check list, pick a job, and complete it without explanation. The next year it might work better to keep the list as a reference tool for yourself then have kids ask you what jobs are available to help. The key is to create a system that works for your art room. In my experience, a one-size-fits all approach never works for education. In my classroom the odd art jobs chart works best for small pockets of early finishers. It’s not a good solution for when an entire class completes a project early. Check out the list of odd art jobs I’ve had students do in my classroom located below.

Odd Art Jobs

• Wash paint containers with special sponges (Usually I let them use a fun scrubbing tool I pick up at the dollar store.)
• Sort scrap boxes (I have my paper scraps sorted by color so that it’s easy to access what I need for certain projects or for classroom teachers to borrow.)
• Count out paper I need for certain grade level projects (For example, if I need 65 sheets of three different kinds of paper for my next kindergarten project I will have a student help count it out for me. This way all I need to do is cut it to size and I have exactly what I need!)
• Sort marker bins and throw out dry markers (I have the student helpers take a scrap piece of paper and make test marks on it. If a marker is dry it goes to the trash. I might even have them save the marker caps for when students lose theirs during projects. This is a great job for any age level!)
• Make signs to label different areas of the art room. (I make a list of things I would like labels for as I work around the classroom. You could spend hours labeling your supplies and cabinets. Sometimes I will pre-print the signs and the student helpers will color, cut and attach them. Some examples of signs students have made for me are how to draw book categories, warm colors, in-box, watercolor paint brush sizes and newspaper.)
• Take down bulletin boards (All of my hallway displays are at student height so I don’t have to worry about step stools. The bulletin boards are also visible from the art room or the office for teacher monitoring. I usually send students out in teams of two or three but no more. And I make sure that they know exactly what to do.)
• Glue project paragraphs to the back of artwork (I attach a short paragraph describing the art process and what students learned to the back of each project for Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grades. I try to give them as much hands on time as possible so we don’t always get time to glue the project paragraphs to the framed art. This is a great job for early finishers to help with.)
• Have older kids glue or staple frames to younger kids completed art projects (I usually write the student names on the projects ahead of time. Then all my student helpers need to do is glue or staple the artwork on to the pre-cut frames.)
• Sharpen pencils (To save time while my classes are drawing I like to have my pencil bucket ready for action. Instead of kids sharpening pencils while I’m talking they simply exchange their pencil for an already sharpened one in the pencil bucket. It cuts down on interruptions and lost work time. So periodically the bucket needs to be sorted and the pencils sharpened.)
• Make Tracers for other grade level projects (I will make two or three tracers and then have student helpers trace them onto heavy cardboard. Then, I put the cardboard in our parent volunteer bin for the adults to cut out. Takes a little forethought but saves me a lot of time and energy.)
• Sort classes artwork and stuff portfolios to send home (At our schools we use portfolios to transport art work home about three to four times a year. If I have a larger group of student helpers I will have them sort a particular classes art projects into plies for each kid. Then they simply slip each students art work into the pre-labeled portfolios to send home at a later date.)
• Set up supplies for the next art class. (I often have little time in between classes to set up new supplies. So I might switch from 3rd grade to 1st grade to 5th grade. Well that’s a large amount of supplies to have out at one time and I don’t have enough counter space. So I will have early helpers take out the materials for the next class and set it up on one counter. Then when the class is over they clean up their art supplies and put them totally away. Now I have a new counter free for that class to set up supplies for the next class following them.)
• Cleaning tasks (i.e., sweep the floor, erase the board, wipe tables, clean clay tools)
• Refill art product containers (I will have students that I know can do a good job refill glue bottles, switch watercolor refills or any other job of that type.)
• Hang bulletin-boards (I usually reserve this job for older students and it is a huge treat for them. Remember, all of my hallway displays are at student height and visible from the art room or the office for teacher monitoring. I usually send students out in teams of two or three but no more. And I make sure that they know exactly what to do. Sometimes I even hang the first three or four pictures so that the student helpers can see what I expect them to do.)
• Cut out items that have been laminated (I have parent helpers laminate papers for me then I have a cut laminate box located in my room where student helpers can grab some laminate and cut it out.)
• Empty the drying rack (This is fairly self explanatory but, student helpers will take art work off the drying rack and put it into the proper classes box.)

Website of the Week

Posted on 30. Oct, 2008 by Theresa McGee in All Posts, Clssrm Mgmt, Positive Reinforcement

Positive reinforcement is a classroom management strategy that I use as often as possible.  Recent research solidifies my reasons for using these techniques.

I have one particularly challenging class this year and all my tricks of the trade have not been working. As a result of my frustration, I developed the “Website of the Week” positive reinforcement program to motivate students to behave appropriately.

I started by gathering a list of fun websites appropriate for students to access independently.  I created a slip of paper for each site that included a compliment on their excellent behavior, the web address and an image from the site.  Since the “website of the week” is only given to students who demonstrate good classroom behavior, I needed to create a system that was easy to track, but also respectful to all students.

My tracking system involves keeping a sheet of paper with the homeroom teacher name on it on my desk.  If a student acts innaproiately (talks while I am talking, runs in the room, etc.) I quietly ask the student to write their name on the sheet of paper.  At the end of class, I only give the “website of the week” to students whose name did not appear on the list at my desk.

Additionally, I have a built-in consequence (loss of recess) if a student’s name appears more than once on the paper during a class period. 

Also at the beginning of each class, to generate excitement, I ask the students what they thought of the site from the previous week – knowing very well their answer would be positive. (Any child without computer access I allowed to come in for a few minutes during lunch to try it out.)

I went from about 10 students a month ago who did not receive the “website of the week” down to one last week.  This once challenging class has transformed into one of my easiest to manage while also using technology to learn and reinforce art content!

Here is a list of fun websites you might like to use for “Website of the Week.”

• Artsology: Games and Activities
• Asian Games | Freer & Sackler Galleries
• Curator Collection
• Facemaker
• Go West, Young Artist:  ArtEdventure
• Leonardo da Vinci
• Brain Pop- Architecture
• Portrait Detectives
• mr. monster head
• Mr. Picassohead
• Visual Illusions
• Artopia
• Albright-Knox Artgames
• Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery for Kids
• Artsology: Coloring Book
• Cézanne’s Astonishing Apples
• ARTSEDGE: Playing with Shadows: An Introduction to Shadow Puppetry
• Detail Detective
• How Van Gogh Made His Mark – The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Learning@Whitney
• Street to Studio: draw online
• The Dancers and Degas
• Aminah’s World
• The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis
• Tate Kids . Games . My Imaginary City
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art – MuseumKids
• Cartoonster – Fun Flash Cartoons and Animation Tutorials!
• Make-a-Flake  Snowflake Maker
• Paper airplaines
• BuiLD YouR WiLD SeLF
• color and meaning
• WACKYKIDS.ORG
• National Museum of Wildlife Art | Carl Rungius
• A Lifetime of Color – Intermediate
• The Artist’s Toolkit | Minneapolis Institute of Arts
• MoMA | online projects | Art Safari
• MoMA.org | Destination Modern Art
• Paper University
• Design a room – Geffrye Museum
• Architect Studio 3D
• The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis
• The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis Glass
• The Cleveland Museum of Art
• Living Colour Australian Museum online
• Make a Monster – Universal Leonardo
• Discover Art–Creatures at the IMA Home
• GettyGames (Getty Museum)
• KidsArt Top Ten Art Lists
• Matisse for Kids
• Hands on Crafts
• SAAM: Meet Me At Midnight
• Kids Corner – Bottlecaps to Brushes
• Jewellery Designer
• Portrait Detectives Homepage
• New Britain Museum of American Art – Family Programs > Online Games
• Smithsonian: Kids
• Design a Coat of Arms
• ArtPad
• BBC - CBeebies - Print and Colour
• Rain-forest Drawing Lessons
• Crayola Creativity Central™
• Drawtoy – a drawing toy
• Every Coin Tells a Story
• Etch a Sketch online
• Kaleidoscope Painter
• Museum of Childhood Kaleidoscope
• Sketching Symmetry
• Haring Kids
• Jackson Pollock painting tool
• Learn How to Draw with Billy Bear
• Mark Kistlers Drawing Lessons
• ProtoZone Interactive Games
• The Toy Maker
• Bembo’s Zoo word games
• Street to Studio: The Art of Jean-Michel Basquiat
• The Renaissance Connection, from the Allentown Art Museum
• Material World – Fun with Animal Materials
• National Museum Scotland – Egyptian Tomb Adventure
• Design a Tile- International Arts and Crafts
• Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery for Kids
• Face It!
• Gallery Game with Sounds
• Be a Roman Artist – Mosaics and Murals
• National Gallery of Art
• Decorate a Gingerbread Man
• Getty Devices of Wonder
• Learn about Color
• Aaron’s Awesome Adventure (The Met)

Learn how to shrink or customize any of these URL addresses with Tiny URL.

Positive Reinforcement Game Board

Posted on 28. Oct, 2008 by Hillary Andrlik in All Posts, Clssrm Mgmt, Positive Reinforcement

Artopoly game board

After you get all of the routines and procedures in place, how do you reinforce those positive student actions? One way is by creating a Positive Reinforcement Game Board for your art room. I discovered this system from my colleague, Cassie, when I first started teaching and we shared a classroom. The game board can be as simple as a piece of poster board or as elaborate as your imagination can make it.

When I started using the game board it was called the “behavior game.” I know, how unexciting, but the kids didn’t seem to mind. This year I asked my students to come up with a new theme for the game board and they choose Artopoly based on Monopoly. Many of the game board spaces have images of public art found in Chicago instead of the traditional Monopoly spaces. You can pick any theme for your game board such as an artist palette, a book like Mouse Paint or a museum such as the Art Institute of Chicago. The idea behind it is simple but very effective in motivating my elementary students. Follow the classroom rules and you can advance around the game board to earn a reward.

Here’s how it works:

• The game board rules are your classroom rules.
• Each day your classes can earn a certain number of spaces to advance on the game board by following the classroom rules. My classes earn up to five spaces a day, but you can pick a number that works for your classes. I keep track of how many spaces my classes have earned by drawing stars on the dry erase board.
• When the students are lined up at the end of art class, move their class game piece forward the amount of spaces they’ve earned for the day. At first my class game pieces were little flags made out of construction paper and push pins. Now they are made of scrap leather bookmarks that a local bank had extra of from a free give away and T-pins.
• When a class reaches the end of the game board they earn a big reward! Remember, because this is a long-term incentive, the reward needs to be very enticing to your students. For my classes it’s an art party with numerous art centers to choose from while an art-themed movie is playing. Art centers can be a collage with scrap boxes, free draw, scented markers, gel pens, stamps, tracers, modeling clay, play dough, puzzles, leftover chalk pastels, leftover oil pastels, colored pencils, how to draw books, watercolor, crayons, weaving, markers, computers or murals on butcher-block paper. Basically, art centers are any media that encourages exploration, development of fine motor control or won’t cost extra.

New Twist on the Game Board

Drawn fish bowls with die cut paper fish used to track art centers earned by classes.

This year my school district adopted new nutrition rules that do not allow food to be used as a reward. I used to have a popcorn art party when a class reached the end of the game board with the art-themed movie and a few extra art activities. To replace the popcorn, my classes generated a list of art centers (listed above) that they would like to earn as they advance around the game board. When a class lands on a ? space I ask them an art question based on the content we studied that day or from previous years. If they answer the question correctly they earn an art center. To keep track of what each class has earned, I drew fish bowls to go with our all school behavior system The Fish Philosophy. This new twist on the game has worked out great! Students are working even harder to earn an art party but they don’t realize it. It also gives me another way to review content studied each day in class.

Positive Reinforcement

Posted on 16. Oct, 2008 by Hillary Andrlik + Theresa McGee in All Posts, Clssrm Mgmt, Positive Reinforcement

Create an elementary art environment that praises and encourages desirable student behaviors. Learn how to reward good behavior in a meaningful way that helps develop intrinsic motivation. Check out our “Positive Reinforcement” tip sheet that gives creative ideas that can be adapted for any classroom.

• Some examples of positive reinforcement from our tip sheet includes:
• Create a slip of paper with a fun website of the week. Distribute it to students caught doing the right thing.
• Xerox fun “how to draw” pages. Give out to hard working students.
• Create a compliment slip for children to fill out about other children (example). This can be filled out at any time during class (except clean up). You need to teach that the compliment must be specific. (Not just Joe was nice.) Read compliment out loud for class to hear and give to compliment recipient.
• Create a positive reinforcement game board (example).
• For the complete positive reinforcement tip sheet, click here.

Learning from Mistakes Only Works After Age 12

Posted on 29. Sep, 2008 by Theresa McGee in All Posts, Clssrm Mgmt, Positive Reinforcement

(Image: Courtesy of Leiden University)

Thought I would pass along this article from Science Daily based on the research of learning styles of children.  This could prove helpful when developing behavior management systems in your classroom.

The picture to the left shows the areas of the brain involved in cognitive control following positive feedback in children aged 8 to 9.