Maybe I'm a huge nerd, but I love puns. So for a recent sub plan, I left a an actual 'art sub' lesson. When I had to be gone again, I thought it would be funny to leave another play on words and leave an submarine sandwich sub plan. ;-)

Here's what I left:
Step 1: Introduce yourself to the class. Read the following poem and discuss YOUR expectations, by having students list how they should behave in art when Mrs. Mitchell IS here.

Take a ride with me,
On the art submarine sandwich.
We will pile it high, nearly to the sky.
I wonder what we will eat on the art submarine!?

You must be wondering about Mrs. Mitchell,
I can only tell you that she must be ill
But today is the day
that we will play
With the idea of an art submarine sandwich.

Just close your eyes, I'm sure you can imagine
A sandwich where anything can happen
The wonderous site that is
A hogie bun overflowing
In a rainbow of colors
Full of your favorite foods and others

"You are just a sub," they say,
"Only Mrs. Mitchell can show us the way!"
But class have no fear
the challenge is clear,
Today we must design
(by coloring and drawing with lines)

The most amazing art submarine
that Mrs. Mitchell has ever seen.

Step 2
Ask students: If you were making an ART submarine sandwich, piled high with toppings, what might you put on it? (Ex: food, art supplies, tools, animals, candy) You can make it silly!
Step 3
Use the a posted images of submarine sandwiches to have students draw an ‘art’ submarine on white paper. Students should also draw the top and bottom bun first, and then add ‘food’ in layers between the buns. Students should draw their submarine with pencils, trace over it with sharpies, and then color it with crayons, markers or colored pencils.

Step 4
Please collect the artwork and make sure students have their names on their papers. Stack each class on my desk with a label.
Supplies:
6X12 white paper
sharpies
pencils/erasers
​choice of crayons, markers or colored pencils

I was pleasantly surprised with many of the results. I wish a few of them would've added more details to fill in the white spaces between each food, but in some cases, the white areas work well as visual space between each item. I love the really silly ones. I was worried that some kids would rush through this, so I also purchased the Silly Sandwich sub plan on TPT and left the visuals on the board so that the sub could use them for additional instructional input. 

A few years ago, I thought about leaving this as a sub plan, but never got around to prepping the lesson. This year, I had to miss a few days and it was perfect! 

Step 1: Introduce yourself to the class. Read the following poem and discuss YOUR expectations, by having students list how they should behave in art when Mrs. Mitchell IS here. 

Take a ride with me,
On the art submarine.
It will dive down deep, under the sea
I wonder what we will see on the art submarine!?

You must be wondering about Mrs. Mitchell,
I can only tell you that she must be ill
But today is the day
that we will play
With the idea of an art submarine

Just close your eyes, I'm sure you can imagine
A place where anything can happen
The wonderous site that is
A submarine swimming swift
In a rainbow of colors
Full of your friends and others

"You am just a sub," they say,
"Only Mrs. Mitchell can show us the way!"
But class have no fear
the challenge is clear,
Today we must design
(by coloring and drawing with lines)

The most amazing art submarine
that Mrs. Mitchell has ever seen. 

Step 2
Ask students: If you were on an ART submarine, diving down under the sea, what might you see down there? (Ex: famous paintings, art supplies, a museum, ocean animals, ocean animals dressed as artists, buried treasure and sculptures, shipwrecks, Mrs. Mitchell scuba diving?) Draw in pencil first, then trace in sharpie. 

Step 3
Use the handout of submarine images to have students draw an art submarine on 12X18 paper.Students should also draw what they might encounter if it really is an ART submarine.
Students should draw their submarine with pencils, trace over it with sharpies, and then color it with crayons. (or their choice of markers, colored pencils or construction paper crayons). 

Supplies:
12X18 Baby Blue construction paper
Pencils +erasers
Sharpies
Construction paper crayons (or I let mine choose to use regular crayons, markers or colored pencils)

For visuals, I googled 'submarine clip art' and zoomed way out and took a screenshot of a whole bunch and then made enough copies for each table to keep 4. I left a few books about sea creatures to use as a reference, but most kids were creative enough to come up with all sorts of cute things! 

I have three videos I use to teach this project. 

The first video that I show, explains how to make the kumihimo maruadai disk out of cardboard and start the weaving. 

One of the videos is very short, it shows them how to tie their 7 strings into a 'granny' knot. 

The final video I show, explains how to take the weaving off of the loom and turn it into a bracelet. 

These aren't the best videos, but they work for my needs. ;-) 

Some of my students (especially boys) get super addicted to this as they can keep their hands busy and they like that. Also, some of them already have yarn or they can get it easy from family. So its pretty cheap for them, and it is portable, the little disk fits in their pocket so they can take it on long car trips or do it while watching t.v. I show them how to pull the yarn from the middle of the skein of yarn, instead of around the outside, in case they do get their own skeins at wal-mart or a craft store. I also let them sit with friends while they are finishing and they love that! 

This project teaches them how to tie knots, builds their hand eye coordination, and builds up their little finger muscles. It takes a little while at first to see the bracelet grow, but once they get good at it, they can do it so much faster. It is quicker to learn than crochet or knitting, and it is functional, they can wear it as a bracelet, headband, necklace or even make it as a pet collar. 

​I love this project and so do my students!

Last week, while teaching my students the art of the kumihimo weaving, I had a boy who absolutely refused to try the technique.

I supposed it seemed difficult, as he had been absent the first day of the project so he missed the part about how to set up the loom. I had made a loom for him and gathered his string the previous class period, so actually it should've been easy to pick it up and move the third one from the empty slot over and over and over again until it was long enough to become a bracelet. The hard part was done, all that was left was actually implementing the braiding and repeating the process, using perseverance. 

When I first handed him his loom, he exclaimed that he was going to make his into a cat toy.....which meant that he was going to take all that yarn off of the loom and do something else with the it and ignore the new skill that I wanted him to try that day. 

As an art teacher, this was one of those really, really, really hard moments. 

On the one hand, he had a creative idea and he was excited to make something. On the other hand, the room was set up for bracelet making, the supplies were ready for him to try a new skill and he was refusing. 

This is a student that frequently refuses things that seem hard. If he doesn't think he will be able to accomplish the task, he says what he would rather do. He also argues about why his idea is better and questions why he can't do what he wants to do. 

I struggled in this moment because he DID have a creative idea....and maybe it would've turned out great. But I had a plan for the day and I was frustrated that he wasn't as excited as I was to try something new. 

This was one of those moments where I thought a lot about a TAB art room. For this particular student, a TAB room would be the best thing ever. He would be free to choose his material and his subject every time and not be forced make what everyone else was making. 

I have dabbled with TAB a couple of times since I moved to the middle school, but my classroom just isn't designed to store that many different kinds of projects, or set up that many different materials at the same time.

As an art teacher, I can totally see the benefits of a TAB curriculum, so I try to implement that way of creating at least once a semester. Since I only have my students half the year, I felt like I was opening a new station every week, and then closing everything and starting over in January....just when we were getting going, it was time to start over. Also, my 6th graders did not take it seriously. They just wanted to play every time and never got into what they were making and it was discouraging. 5th graders definitely thrive in a TAB environment. 

In a TAB or Choice Based studio, students are encouraged to use their own creativity. I have read many articles about how the public education system has squelched creativity in students. I even wrote my Master's thesis on this topic. 

In that moment with that student, I felt like I was squelching his creativity. 

We sort of went round and round.
I told him that I wanted him to try a new skill.
He told me that he would rather be taking the MAP test.
I told him that this activity would be good for his finger muscles and his hand eye coordination and might even be relaxing.
He told me the hated art and music and only liked P.E.
I asked him if he could do whatever he wanted in the gym, or did he have to participate in the game they had set up for the day (bad mitten, mat ball, basketball)?
He said that this week, they could choose between two games and my class was stupid and the project was stupid. 

Obviously, we were getting nowhere.
Now, we just have a few weeks left.
I know he will push back against some of the things we have planned. 

I'm sharing this story as I think about the benefits of a choice-based curriculum verses a tradition art classroom where the teacher plans every aspect of the project. 

I like to think that I give my students tons of choice on each project....they can choose their own yarn colors, they can select an animal, they can pick what color of paper, they can draw whatever design they want in the background....but the truth is, maybe that isn't enough for them to buy in anymore.

Students today are given very little options in their educational decisions.....everyone studies the same thing at the same time, regardless of their individual interests. Sure it is easier for the teacher, but do the students truly connect or make lasting memories. 

For Valentine's and Easter, we had a 'catch up' day. If students were done with other projects, they could use supplied materials to make whatever they wanted to take home. They could make a collage, use origami techniques, draw, make a little paper sculpture, using materials we already had available for other projects. We used paper scaps, color sticks, scissors, glue sticks, etc. Students were happy and I gave them a participation grade a they went out the door with their creation from the day. Since some students truly needed a full day to get caught up on other projects, some students were not able to have this 'free time'. The main rule was that they had to make SOMETHING or work on other work. If they did not want to make something to hang up at home, they could even make a card for someone for Valentine's Day or Easter. 

Even with all that freedom, I still had students who walked out the door with nothing.....one boy was in tears because his creation didn't work out and he wadded it up and threw it away. 

​In this case, I wanted him to try a new skill, even just for a few minutes....and he wasn't ready. By pushing him too hard, did I create a kid that will hate art forever? If I just let him do whatever he wants every time, am I really preparing him for the future or am I just setting him up to fail later. Just because something is hard, doesn't mean it isn't worth trying. Just because it isn't your favorite, doesn't mean you shouldn't try a new skill. 

I try to give my students LOTS of different types of things throughout the semester. Sometimes we use yarn, sometimes we use paper to make collages, sometimes we paint. My hope is that they will find something that they enjoy, but they might not like every single thing we do...and that is okay. 

The MAEA spring conference was held in Branson, Missouri April 4-6th this spring. I was able to attend and I am so glad that I did. Some things that I took away from the conference were ideas I could implement right away. 

Sculpey burgers and other tiny food. We have already made tiny Model Magic food this semester, because of this idea! 

I used to do a LOT more step-by-step drawing project with my younger students. Now that I teach 5th and 6th grade, I try to give them a lot more options so rarely is a whole class drawing exactly the same thing. However, I do slide in one or two Art Hub for kids drawing activities a semester. They are good because it can give some students a little confidence if they don't think they are good at drawing, usually they can draw along with a high level of success. Also, most kids can usually finish this in a day or two. See our Monster Trucks last year!

This year, with spring on the way, I decided to try out some of the bird drawings. I have done the Cardinal several times since that is our mascot, but I wanted to try some of the other ones on the channel. I had a couple of classes do the robin, and a couple of classed do the hummingbird. Those were both REALLY successful. I only had one class do the hawk, one class the peacock and one class do the Phoenix. I though they would really love the peacock and the Pheonix but the details were harder to implement and a few kids got a little frustrated in each class. 

I like the bird videos because they use GOOD colored pencils (or oil pastels in the peacock video), and it gives me a chance to show my students how much nicer Prismacolored pencils are...and I encourage them to ask for a set for Christmas/Easter/birthday if they are really into drawing, those colored pencils are so much better quality. Also, the videos demonstrate blending and it is cool to see kids really try to make their birds look realistic. 

I gave the students 8.5X11 white drawing paper so we could mount on 9X12 construction paper for the display. I also let them draw in pencil first and then trace in sharpie. 

I always like the results of step-by-step drawings, but I'm not sure if it really teaches drawing skills. I do like using this project for learning how to shade and blend colors. It is easier to demonstrate layering the color when everyone has the same subject, the layers would all be in the same places. When everyone draws a different animal, it is harder to explain without a demonstration for each one. 

This spring, I attended the Missouri Art Education Association Spring Conference, for the first time in like forever. I love to go and see all of my favorite art teachers from all over the state. I went to several awesome sessions, but one of my favorites was on a whim. We popped into see the little mini cheeseburger session, thinking that we would never be able to afford sculpey clay for all of our students so it was sort of a pointless one, but sounded like a lot of fun. 

It WAS a lot of fun and it gave me the idea to do tiny food with model magic. I usually order a couple of boxes of white model magic class packs each year and I save them for when everyone sort of has spring fever and no one is in the mood to draw. This week we started MAP testing so the tiny food was perfect. 

The hardest is part is taking the white model magic and making it a different color....like dark brown for hamburger meat. Also, the red gets all over your fingers, so I tell them to save red for last. Basically, students have to break the model magic into small pieces and color each section with markers. We used washable Mr. Sketch markers because they have the best pigment (and I had a big new class pack of the scented ones, which I thought would fit well with a tiny food project)

Students could make any tiny food that they wanted and at the end I gave them a little white paper plate they could decorate to take their food out the door with them on so it could harden in a safe spot. Also, I told them to save their wrapper to use as a placemat and to wrap their extra clay up in at the end. I gave them a little piece of tape to close it up so they could make something with it at home since most of them did not have time to use it all during class. 

I also had toothpick so they could make little corn dogs or smores. With sculpey, they can use the toothpics to add details, but model magic isn't as forgiving. This was a one-day challenge, and students took the project home the same day. I also made a little movie with directions since everyone is doing this on different days because of MAP testing...I was afraid I would forget some of the instructions. 

I really like it when my students work BIG. I have had them work big in collaborative paintings before, and during summer school, but this is the first project that I have facilitated with 18X24 paper, with 340 students at the same time.

It was a challenge.

The kids seemed to enjoy the project and the paintings look amazing in the halls, but it was a LOT of behind the scenes work. 

When I ordered paper this year, I only ordered 18X24. I usually order 12X18 white paper, but the only 12X18 paper I ordered was construction paper. Literally all of my drawing paper has been 18X24, which has meant a lot of cutting it down to size for each and every activity.

For this project, I decided to have my 5th and 6th graders work BIG. First, we studied an animal. I told them to pick an animal with either feathers or fur as we would be focusing on the texture. We talked about personification, how they could put a hat on it or give it some human personality. 

Students drew a couple of small thumbnail sketches, and then a final bigger 8.5X11 drawing in their sketchbooks. We looked at images from books and I also printed a bunch of black and white pictures of animals to use as references too. Students had to practice hatching, cross hatching, stippling and 'scribbling' to draw different textures in their sketchbooks. I printed a sheet from here as a reference. 

This part of the project was inspired by the illustrator Indi Maverick AND blogger/instagram Art Room Britt and here. . 

We transferred the 8.5X11 sketch to a transparency by tracing it with a sharpie. Students colored with permanent markers on the back of the transparency and added the texture on the front with sharpie, creating a reverse glass project.

Before attaching the transparency to the frame, students went to one of 3 overhead projectors in the room. They taped their 18X24 paper to the wall and transferred their smaller drawings to the big paper. I told them that they did not have to transfer all of the texture. 

While finishing the transparency part (it took a few days for everyone to get to the projectors in every class), we looked at some contemporary painters. I ordered the Animal box on amazon and had each artist at a table. Students did a gallery walk stopping behind their 'favorite' collection. They did a 'small fires' activity to discuss their chosen artist. I had the info sheet for each artist printed for them to look at as a reference. 

The frames were made with black 12X16 paper, colored with crayola color sticks. I taught them how to cut the middle out of a piece of paper.  About half of the classes added writing or a story. The writing could be added as a background or it could hang down below the artwork. These aren't as stunning in the cafeteria as the big paintings, but we were doing a building-wide writing event in March so they fit the bill.

​All classes would've added writing, but we were working on clay, working around snow days and a few interruptions so something had to get nixed.

We finally started painting around the same time we were glazing a clay animal project. It worked well because on the first day of painting, only about half of the classes were painting at a time. This made a big difference in drying wrack space! The VERY first day of painting, I told them that they had to start with the background (not just outlines like the one below) as the paintings will flutter out of the drying wrack if the do not have enough paint on them. We learned that the hard way. They HAVE to have a large area painted in order to weigh down the artwork when it is in the drying wrack. 

I set up the paint with the main colors in cupcake liners in pallets. This worked well the first week. By the 5th week, the cupcake liners were a mess and it was hard to pour paint into the small pallets for mixing without getting totally covered in paint. But each table had a big pallet and 4 small pallets. Also, I added another pallet with black, white and brown. Finally, the last day of painting, I had silver, gold and copper for adding details. 

I had 4 small painting pallets on each table for mixing, but I did not let them wash those out after each class because we just did not have time at the end. My art classes are 47 minutes with 2 minutes in between. It would've taken 10 minutes or more to wash all of the pallets between classes so I just told them to leave the paint for the next kid and I soaked the pallets at night. I also did not have them wash their own brushes. We barely had time to wash hands and put papers in the drying rack. 

​Before setting up the paint, I read through this book 'Children and Painting' by Cathy Weisman Topal.

​The book was published in 1992, but based on the results I got from my 5th and 6th graders, children's painting results haven't changed that much.


Many of my student's paintings would've fit right in amongst the pages of this book. 

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I did end up having a couple of days where all 170 students needed to paint on the same day.

​Those were long, messy, tiring days with VERY full drying wracks. Since the 18X24 paper was too big for the drying wrack, the papers tended to limply sag down on top of each other.

I tried to put the wettest part of the paper towards the back of the shelf, and I put a copy paper lid under each side of the drying wrack to help hold up the papers. This helped a ton. Still, some papers stuck together and some papers fell out.

Frustratingly, I had to wait at the drying wrack during clean up to put EVERY SINGLE PAPER in there (while everyone else rushed around wiping down tables, spilling paint, etc.) It made for a very long day. 

Day 1
Write name on back ( some did not have names!)
Paint background. You can mix colors in the paint pallets (quick overview on color mixing). 
Intro to using brushes: do not splatter paint, do not tap brushes on water tubs. You can refill water tubs at the sink, only get about half full. Do not leave brushes in the water between classes. 

Day 2
Finish the background. Start painting animal's fur. Save whiskers and other details for LAST. 

Day 3
Finish animal's fur, start painting details like eyes. Show example of animal eye up close. Explain how to add texture for the fur. 

Day 4 
Finalize painting (finalize outlines), add final details (silver, gold and copper paint available). Have a friend hold it up and you stand back and look at spots that need to be touched up. Does the nose look right? Are there smudges that need to be touched up? Sign your name on the front. 

Two things I learned:
1. only about three 18X24 paintings could fit at each table. I set up a folding table and put some clothes pins on the wall so that kids could hang their paintings up like bob ross. This worked because they had individual pallets. 
2. School-grade brushes SUCK. I ended up bringing in about 40 brushes from home and I am so glad that I did. The school brushes just did not do a good job!

I decided to hang up all 340 paintings. I love to fill the halls with artwork at the end of the year! Also, I think it is slightly easier to hang big pictures than it is to hang a bunch of small stuff. The displays don't get as wonky as it is easier to keep stuff straight. I included this photo for scale....I don't think you can tell how big these are without a bit of scale for reference!

Oh, I forgot to mention! I also spent one little art day telling my students about my favorite artist when I was a kid, was Lisa Frank. I told them lots of facts about how she got started as an artist right out of high school. I found a calendar at the Dollar Tree and hung each image above my white board as a reference. I told them that Lisa Frank is famous for bright colors and LOTS of details! I encouraged them to add more details and tons of color too. 

I also spent another day telling them some art history about the impressionists, all they way to the pop artists and showed them examples of lots of animal paintings through art history on my bulletin board.

On the last day or two of painting, I encouraged them to get their original sketch or photo back out and look at it again to see if it looks right! Sometimes it is easy to forget details along the way. This helped some of them realize that they had done the nose completely wrong!

I think since we had worked on these for so long, it was hard to get them to add details like texture. Some students came to my room every afternoon during Cardinal Time to work on their paintings because they needed extra time. 

Needless to say, this was a very long, big project that I am proud to share.

My coworkers love all of the color in the halls. One of them even made a video of the paintings. 

Thank you Cassie Stephens for a great project! I can see why she limited it to cats and dogs....some animal's heads did not balance well if they added a heavy snout or beak. I encouraged my students to only do a dog or cat if they were new to using clay!

Logistics was a big issue for me as I had 340 students doing clay at the same time and my kiln room is lacking shelving. 

I decided to split clay into two separate weeks for my red vs. white day students so that I would have plenty of room to store projects. 

When students arrived to class on a Tuesday of clay week, I handed them a sandwhich ziplock with a white label on it. I told them to write their name on the label and set it aside. We watched the first part of the clay bobble head video on how to make the base and then I passed out the clay. 

At each table, I had a water container, toothbrushes, a piece of canvas or burlap for each student to use when flattening their clay, a couple of wood sticks and a masonite paddle for each student to work on. As they were flattening their clay, I passed out the toilet paper roll. I used paper towel rolls cut into 1/3rds. 

After making their base, I gave everyone a wet paper towel and showed them how to wrap it around their wet clay, bag it with the ziplock and put it into a box. After class, I wrapped each box in a plastic bag so that the projects would not be too dry to work on again on Thursday. 

On the second day of the project (I prayed for NO snow days very hard that week!), we watched the 2nd half of the video where she makes the pinch pot head and adds the eyes and stuff. I ended up giving them the clay about halfway through the last half of the video so they would have plenty of time to add details. 

While students were making the heads, I went around and pulled the cardboard tubes out of everyone's body. This gave me a chance to check thickness and make sure it would work. I found a few that were full of thick clay that I scraped out...glad I checked! Some of them had smashed the cone part down into the tube. Since the base was very important, this part needed to be right.

Students put the head in the same box with the body, carving their name into both at the end of class. This time, no plastic bags or paper towels! (I reused the plastic bags the next week, just stuck a new sticker on over the old one)

If you ever decided to do this project, DO NOT RUSH the drying time. Let those puppies sit for at least a week. Some of mine sat for 9 days, but since it was cold in my kiln room, they took forever to dry out. I had one massive load explode so I had about 20 students (5-6 from 3 classes) that had to redo their bodies. 

My kiln room is not attached to my art room, in fact, it is down the hall and through two sets of doors. I can move about 4 boxes (1 class at a time) to the kiln room. Each class had to be taken to the kiln room twice, and returned to the art room twice for glazing and to take it home. I ended up making over 50 trips with my cart loaded down with clay. 

I set up the glazes the same way that I had with the clay phone holders last fall. Hot colors on three tables, cool colors on three tables and neutrals at three tables. We used tons more neutrals on this project, so I was glad that I had a few bottles of brown. We used the Mayco Stroke'n'Coat glaze and I just love this stuff! 3 coats is best!