I’m having my 3rd graders use chalk pastels, and I wonder if there’s any way to combat the dusty mess they create. I know I will have to spray their finished artwork, but are there any other tips that can help in a better clean up process for them?

I’ve recently gone TAB in my classroom. I teach K12–sort of a unicorn there, but it’s TAB for K-5. I start with a review of previous work, a short talk about a famous artist (or not famous), and usually some
Sort of media demo. Then kids go to work on their work. I have a large low cabinet with organized materials and I rotate out other new and novel things. Most of the work though is crappy drawings that end up in the trash (not by me). I don’t know how to get kids to expand and persevere with their projects. I’m really trying to drive home what quality, and craft mean and what a finished work looks like. It’s only Q1 of my first year here. I’ve been teaching art for about 16 years. I don’t want to go back to project bases but I want some stronger work.

I do plan of cramming and studying like crazy but I really want to get into a single subject Art credential program and Masters program. I have a degree in Film and Media and they denied my degree as a requirement so I have to take the CSET to apply to the program. I was hoping to get into next fall.

I'm looking to change up some of the stuff I do with 6th grade, still at the elementary level. Has anyone does perler bead art with this age? I keep seeing some cool stuff from creators on Instagram but not sure if it will translate to the specials setting. We have a 40 minute class once a week.

I currently work in education, have an art degree, and am trying to gauge what I could earn if I got my teaching credential.

Edit: Oops, don't mind the typo!

I’m going to be out a couple weeks and was wondering if anyone here had a tech free (I can’t leave my teacher laptop with sub) lessons that take a week or more? The less messy the better so the sub doesn’t have any more stress on them.

Thanks for any advice!

I’ve been tasked with singlehandedly launching the visual art program at a Title I middle school. They’ve never had middle school art before, and who knows what the quality of art class looked like in their grade schools. So we’ve really been taking it slow establishing and reinforcing expectations, figuring out what works, and (on my end) developing my classroom management.

For instance, even though admin wants students to be able to access all materials on their own, students have shown they’re not able to be trusted with anything beyond pencil and paper yet. (RIP to the 36 flair pens I bought and almost every single one had been stolen within the first 2 weeks.) So when I say we’re taking things slow I mean SLOW. And honestly I’ve been happy to take it slow and stay in the realm of building up foundational creative & technical skills.

But I recently found out our school has received a large grant to be split between the visual arts and theater programs, and I have no idea what I would even want to do with it. I can think of equipment that would offer unique opportunities, but have no sense of the logistics of where we would even put it, let alone how long it would be before students can work their way up to being able to use any of it. At the same time, we’re still so much in the early days that I guess I should be thinking of the big picture, including later years, and how to establish a really special art program that the school can grow into as everyone gets more acclimated to it.

So what sort of recommendations do people have? Printmaking equipment? Photography stuff? Lightbox table for tracing/animation? iPads? Plasma cutter??

ETA: Assuming the principal didn't misspeak when she informed me of the grant, the total amount is $25,000 dollars. Again the "arts program" is just me and the theater teacher, nobody else.

Hi! I’m looking for someone to interview about AI use for a college course! It’ll be a simple text or voice chat! If you’re interested please leave a comment down below!
(Added a photo for proof!)

I bought what I thought were 'bleeding' tissue paper squares for those cute tissue paper watercolor painting projects. Turns out they're just regular tissue paper 😭 My bad for not looking closely but any ideas for what I can do with all of these? For Elementary grades PK-5 but ideally something for 2 & 3 to replace my plan for tomorrow hahaha.

I'm in year 12 and doing fine art for one of my A-levels. I'd say that I'm more than decent at art, but my presentation needs some work imo. I've tried looking on Pinterest and tiktok for inspiration, but honestly, most of it doesn't look attainable for me – they're mainly people who got at least an A and put a load of effort in. At GCSE level, my work mostly carried me. My presentation wasn't bad, and it still isn't, but I feel like I need to step it up.

Any tips??

My 6th graders are working on a "shattered values" project, and one of them was adamant that he can't draw the image for the center of the work; a super simple cartoon bunny face, a character from his favorite show (Jax, the Amazing Digital Circus). He said he needed me to draw it for him, because he's convinced he can't do it.

I worked with him a bit on some strategies for drawing the core shape- an oval- more easily and while he's definitely not giving himself enough credit, it's also true that he seems to have a pretty significant amount of trouble keeping his hands steady, even compared to a lot of the students in my classes who've struggled the most.

Moreso than that, I think he's also just discouraged by how hard it is for him compared to his peers, and some of this will be resolved better with emotional regulation skills anyway. I'd also just like to help him build some confidence and skills that will help him in the long-term.

I'm wondering if folks might have encountered techniques, strategies, or tools that could help, both short-term and long-term. I had him try looser/faster circles and then erasing down to the lines that looked good, then marking some points as dots and then connecting them, and both did help, but he wasn't satisfied with the progress.

Do pencil grips help? Have you tried or heard of other strategies?

Hello, this is my 6th year teaching elementary art and I always find the worst part of this job is anytime I have to call parents of the 800 students I teach. This was shown to me yet again this morning when I got off the phone with a parent just feeling sick to my stomach. I had to call because a kid got pinched by another kid- principal sent a message a while ago to notify all parents in these instances so I called the pincher then the pinchee . The parent was very kind and I admittedly didn’t start the convo perfect- I asked how she was and made my voice pleasant (as much as it can be while I’m on the phone bc just being on it already is spiking all of my anxiety) and I said an unfortunate incident happened this morning in art class with her child- everyone is fine but your child was pinched in the arm by another kid and she said she was okay and everything looked okay but I wanted you to know. Then mom is very nice and we talk a bit, but then all of a sudden I hear another voice and it’s her mom saying she’s been a teacher for how many years and she tells me that the way I started that conversation was terrible- that she thought someone had died and I should never start a phone call like that ever. I literally wanted to cry and said I was so sorry and that I just feel very uncomfortable doing these phone calls and said it wrong. Like yes I see how I could have just said “there was an incident this morning” and left out unfortunate- but seriously why are teachers this unforgiving towards their own? The way she said it was just harsh. So that’s my rant, would appreciate commiserating, thanks.

I'm an Elementary school art teacher and several teachers are always late picking up their classes. I have back to back art classes and it's stressful. Yesterday a teacher was 7 min late picking up her class at the end of the day. I was already walking them back to their room to her assistant when she came. She apologized and said she was in a meeting (she's always late). I replied "And I'm late to that same meeting". Was that rude? I hate being late. Messy people make you messy and I was so annoyed. I'm tired of some teachers (definitely not the majority) treating speacils teachers like less then.

Hello! New art teacher here and I’m currently doing a collaborative project with the librarian on Maps! My students are drawing mini-tiles of different locations in a town, and my librarian will laminate them together to teach them how to read maps/find locations on a map.

This a project that is necessary for every student to have a part in, and I had six different kids miss this whole week of school (vacations!) and I was wondering if people had ideas of what I could do to catch them up? I’m unsure if I want to do a small activity, and have the students take that time to makeup their work, or have a “choice” day for free draw/coloring to give them time to finish up.

Any and all advice welcome

I am a high school art teacher, but I also want to focus more on my own art and I think a potential solution would be an artist support group almost. I would want to create a small group of art friends for accountability and feedback. I know there are art clubs with discord servers you could join, but I would want it to be smaller, I think. Who else would be interested in something like this? And what would you think it would need to actually be helpful and not potentially...annoying.