FREE eLearning Resources

With so many of us shifting to eLearning, I thought I would share some resources I created. First, I am doing Arts Madness again this year. I crowdsourced it to create a field of 64 diverse artists. Each round participants fill out a Google form with the simple question of "Which is better?" in a series of head to head matchups until we get down to just one winner. You can check out the brackets and vote at my google site here.
The second resource I am happy to share with everyone is my Google Slide doc that gives different challenges kids can try at home. The beauty of the slides format is kids simply make a copy of the original, rename it and share it with me. They get a document with different options for them to explore, links to supportive resources like demonstration videos and a digital badge board to track their progress. As kids complete projects, they upload a picture of their work onto the appropriate slide, so I have a digital portfolio making it easier for me to see everything they have done and see trends in their work. I made this template for anyone to take, modify and use with their own students. Enjoy!

Comments

Using Google Slides to Gamify Art

This is a video I made demonstrating how I use the Google Slides app to gasify my classroom. This is a sort of modified TAB (Teaching for Artistic Behaviors) setup. Most of the video demonstrates some of the things I have learned through trial and error as far as what makes for a good design, how to handle digital badges etc. One of the primary benefits of using this system, is students choose their challenges, and they are rewarded with digital badges as a recognition of their accomplishments. The whole system focuses on advancement and celebration of achievement fostering a more positive atmosphere in the classroom. Also, when students choose what they are doing, they are more engaged, and they are excited to share their work with peers. I prefer not to have stations for different media, but rather stations where students gather materials. Having all different media out on each table as students work makes for a bit more mess, but a lot more collaboration and students sparking each...

How to Make a Clay Maraca

My kindergarten students study Mexico as a part of their social studies curriculum. Early in the school year, we make pinch pots, and this video shows how we can build off the basic pinch pot project to make a maraca. It is a fun project that makes cross-curricular connections with both Social Studies and Music. Students learn about how a maraca produces sound, how to work with clay to prevent pieces from sticking together and they learn a bit of science (#STEAM) as we discuss what happens to clay and paper in the kiln. Students need to understand that clay will shrink by about 10% as it dries out but that the paper will burn causing smoke and that gasses will expand as they are heated. If the exterior is shrinking while gasses on the interior are trying to expand, it will cause the sculpture to blow up and that is why they need to poke a few holes in their maracas to allow smoke to vent out. Kindergarten students are able to handle about 90% of this project without much proble...

Post Impressionist Painting

I'm working with my second grade students to create Post-Impressionist landscape masterpieces. One thing that I find helpful is starting by looking at some work by artists like Monet, then working through some Post Impressionists like van Gogh and finally I like to end with Matisse. As we compare and contrast, by the time we get to Matisse, kids are noticing how Post-Impressionists tend to have wilder color that is less realistic than the Impressionists. Once, kids make this discovery by themselves, I like to pose the question of why artists would choose to paint with such wild colors. The natural response from a number of kids tends to be something like "to be creative" or "to make it pretty."While these answers have some truth to them, I then like to expand on kids knowledge base. One of the things I think is under appreciated about Impressionism and Post-Impressionism is the role of technology in influencing their work. The camera came about in the mid to l...

Wood Art Ed

Search This Blog