Wood Art Ed

For the first episode of the Podcast, I talked to my favorite LC Director, Tony Kresl about Georges Seurat and his masterpiece, Sunday on la Grande Jatte. Every episode features three parts: In Situ - where we discuss the art history and the context in which the piece was created In Gallery - where we look more closely at the piece sharing what we see, what connections we make In Studio - where we share our takeaways and tips for making better art Click to listen to Who ARTed - Georeges Seurat

Since the new(ish) National Core Arts Standards were adopted,  I have been giving a lot of thought to how I can get kids engaged in connecting and responding to art. While I love art history, it can be difficult to carry on a sustained conversation with the class. A number of students find history interesting, but a much more significant number of my students will join in a class discussion by asking "can we make art now?" Since I switched to format of my class to what I refer to as a "Gamified TAB" classroom, students have been happy and engaged in creating all sorts of different projects. Students pick their projects and earn their marker badge, clay badge, printmaking badge etc. The problem is in my initial rollout, almost everything was centered on the creation aspect of art. Now I am creating new badges for investigation, presentation etc. I created a comfy corner in my classroom where students can read and relax because exploring art history is a perfectly...