Thursday, August 15, 2013

Art of the Week - Year #6

Does anyone else feel like the last few minutes of Art class are wasted? I pride myself on running an efficient classroom and I remember thinking that playing "I Spy" or "7-Up" seemed like a waste of the precious time I got with my students each week. There had to be a better way...

Enter "Artist of the Week"!!! 

I can't believe I've done this for six years now! What started as a way to sneak a little art history into the last few minutes of class has turned into a tradition that I totally love sharing with my students. 

You can read the story of how this class activity started and how it evolved here. And if you'd like to start WAY back in the beginning, you can check out my website too (TONS of links!)

For this 2013-2014 school year, I am using this awesome book my mom found in the discard pile at the local library. GASP! It's a beautiful picture book from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Each page has four images that have one thing in common. For example, the first page has details from a Lichtenstein woodcut, a Cezanne still-life, an American watercolor and a Greek vase from 460 B.C. Each image, though they sound completely different, all have an apple in them somewhere. Super cute, right?! The layout of the book reminded me so much of one of my favorite apps - 4 Pictures, 1 Word. 



So after some further research on www.metmuseum.org, I made a SMARTBoard file that links to each book page and then links to one chosen picture to discuss further with my classes. I am so excited to see how this works with my students!

Please feel free to download the file from the SMART Exchange, but don't feel like you need a SMARTBoard to make this kind of activity work for you. You don't have to play "I Spy" anymore!

~ Amy


8 comments:

  1. Hi! I stumbled upon your blog and I really like it! Thanks for all the great tips!

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  2. Hi, I just stumbled upon your blog and I enjoy it, so I nominated you for a Liebster Award. Please visit my blog at http://onehappyartteacher.blogspot.com to see what to do next.
    --Aimee

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    1. Thanks so much for reading my little blog! And I've passed the torch to 5 more worthy blogs! Thanks again, Aimee!

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  3. I had a student teacher an she did art of the day where she introduced a contemporary artwork. I've modified it to the smARTist of the day and as an incentive for cleaning up early introduce a living artist on my interactive whiteboard where I find images of their work, a photo and sometimes in video of them. This way they see how living artists are creating things that might not work well in the classroom and they also see more diversity in the artist - instead of so many DWGs (dead white guys)

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    1. Scott - love the idea of using contemporary artists! That may have to be next year's plan!

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  4. I find mine on various sites, but pin them on my smARTist board. If you like you can follow it.
    http://pinterest.com/scottart/smartists/

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  5. Just discovered your blog and website thanks to a FB post from Artsonia. Thanks for sharing so many fabulous ideas for those times when we have just a few minutes left and want to do more than play a game!

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