These all about me, back to school art activities for kids are engaging icebreakers. Encourage creativity and build community during the first week back
Today I thought I’d share a strategy I use to help my students communicate their thinking during the inquiry process. See, Think, Wonder is a thinking routine I use with my students to help t…
A Question Matrix is a tool to assist students in developing the skill of asking rich, higher-order questions about objects, events, ideas, and places in their environment.
Critical thinking challenges are not only fun, but develop growth mindset, problem solving skills and resilience. Come find out how!
Do you use rubrics for self-assessment with your students? I developed this rubric based on others I had seen online. I wanted to get my students thinking more about their artwork and writing a few sentences in reflection. We haven’t done much writing in art class before, so I didn’t want to overwhelm them. What do you think? Do you have any suggestions for my rubric? (Does everything sound right, but also easy enough for little kids to understand?) … Read more... →
Learning, crafting, and baking our way through Poland on Week 2 of our educational summer vacation!
Social Emotional Learning (SEL) has been found to promote academic success and increase students' commitment to school. Generally, there are five key components that make up social emotional learning. These competencies include self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and decision making. Today, I'd like to focus on ways to help students develop self-awareness. Self-awareness includes one's ability to recognize emotions, have an accurate self-perception, identify strengths, develop confidence, and show self-efficacy. Researchers have found that a student's ability to control his or her feelings, thoughts, and behaviors can be linked to academic success. So, let's take a look at some easy ways to help students develop an awareness of their individual characteristics and personal emotions. All About Me - A - Z This activity helps students to define and identify a variety of aspects about themselves. They'll create a list about themselves with a characteristic, quality, or emotion for each letter of the alphabet. Materials: Piece of paper, pen or pencil Directions: - On a piece of paper, have students create two columns. (Or grab a ready-made poster here.) - Have them write all the letters of the alphabet in each column. - Then, challenge them to write something about themselves for each letter. For instance, they might write "gregarious" for G or "curious" for C. Ideas: - Share your own A to Z list with students first. - Create a class list of emotions and descriptive words to get students started. - Assemble students' finished lists in a class book. Moment of Mindfulness Mindfulness is a great way to build self-awareness. Since mindfulness is all about paying attention to the present moment, it's a great way for students to pause and reflect on how they are feeling, what they are thinking, and what they need in the present. It's simple to do too! Ways to take a moment of mindfulness: - At the beginning of class, have students close their eyes and take several deep breaths. Ask students to pay attention to their breathing. - Share a mindfulness quote with students to help focus students' thoughts during a moment of mindfulness. - Pause during instruction and have students do a self-awareness check. Encourage them to be mindful of their thoughts and feelings. Reflective Journaling Reflective journaling is a powerful way to help students become self-aware. With targeted writing prompts, students can develop insight into their feelings, make sense of their experiences, and build clarity on their thoughts. When students write about their own experiences and feelings, they become more self-aware. Materials: - A notebook and/or computer, pen or pencil, writing prompts - A list of writing prompts that spark self-reflection, these might include: --- Write about a time when you were proud of yourself. --- List ten things that make you feel excited. --- Reflect on how you have changed this year. --- What is something that you find challenging? (Check out a set of 10 engaging prompts here.) Ideas: - Have students respond to their prompts as if they are writing a letter to themselves..."Dear me..." - Read students' responses and respond to their writing in the margins. Add questions and positive notes at the end of their writing to build connections and spark further reflections. - Schedule a time each day or week for journaling to make it an intentional part of your classroom community. Growth Mindset There are many ways to help students develop a growth mindset. When students develop an understanding that all forms of intelligence are malleable, they are inspired to work toward success. That's why it is so powerful to infuse lessons about growth mindset into instruction. Giving students a moment to reflect on their own mindsets builds self-awareness. Materials: - Short lessons or articles about Growth Mindset to help students understand the differences between a fixed and growth mindset. - Series of questions about students' own mindsets. Directions: - After teaching students about Growth Mindset, have students respond to questions about their own mindsets. - Give students a chance to share their responses with a partner, small group, or the entire class. Ideas: - Share and display inspirational quotes about growth mindset. (I particularly love paper desk tents. They are an easy way to display quotes right on students' desks.) - Highlight important people who demonstrate a growth mindset. Emotions Skits Researchers have noted that there are at least six universal emotions. These include happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, and disgust. Help students investigate and demonstrate these universal emotions by challenging them to write a short play or skit that involves a character or many characters experiencing one of the universal emotions. Materials: - List of the universal emotions, paper, pen - Skit planning pages (optional) Ideas: - Review the six universal emotions with students. As a class have students brainstorm what each emotion looks like (how people look when they are experiencing that emotion) and sounds like (what people might say when experiencing that emotion). - Brainstorm situations where people might feel each emotion. Encourage students to share personal situations when they felt a certain way. - Divide students into small groups. Secretly assign each group an emotion. - Challenge students to write a script that their small group could act out for the class that demonstrates that emotion. - Have small groups perform for the class. Have the audience identify the emotion prevalent in the skit. Self Check-In Daily feelings check-ins are a great way to build self-awareness. When students are given the opportunity to assess how they are feeling and share their emotions with others, they begin to know themselves more fully. Self check-ins also help normalize feelings. Materials: - Paper with an open grid shape - List of feelings Directions: - Pass out the gridded paper to students. - Have them fill the grid with different emotions. - Then, have students display the grid on their desks. - Have them place a token or shape on the emotion that shows how they are feeling at a particular moment. Ideas: - Once students can recognize their feelings, help them to develop strategies for regulating their emotions. - Encourage students to track their feelings over an entire school day. Then, discuss how feelings change in different situations. -------------------------------------------------- I hope you've found a few ways to help students develop self-awareness. Incorporating lessons that target social emotional learning is essential in today's classrooms. If you're looking for ready-made resources, check out this set of 10 SEL reading passages and this set of 6 Self-Awareness Activities. Thanks for stopping by! Mary Beth
Read my five promises on creating and selecting teacher PD that you'll actually love! These promises will be apart of my Virtual Art Retreat!
We all know that helping students develop their fitness is important. It's one of our main goals as Physical Educators. But, how do you make fitness engaging? And maybe even more important, how do you
These all about me, back to school art activities for kids are engaging icebreakers. Encourage creativity and build community during the first week back
K-1 LABELING UNIT How do I teach my kindergarten and first grade students to write? I think every teacher has wondered this at some point. It can seem overwhelming... especially when getting started. I am so excited to share with you how I tackle writing and writer’s workshop! I will sh
Homeschooling with notebooks is a wonderful way to help children develop interests, make observations, and acquire knowledge. It's been used throughout the ages by such notables as Leonardo Da Vinci, Meriwether Lewis, and Isaac Newton. And this video by John Muir Laws shows some beautiful examples of his journals, alon
Have you ever had a class that just tried your patience day after day? Have you ever felt like you could walk away from teaching forever tom...
Autonomy: the power to be independent and free; freedom from external control or influence.
Paper Bag Dramatics: A fun activity for Team Building and Developing Community. Here's an idea that can be used just about anywhere at any time. It encourages groups to solve problems, think creatively, and work as a team.
Are your students disinterested and tired of the traditional ways of learning characterization? Have you been searching for a really fun, student-centered, interactive way to eliminate their boredom? Well, look no further! I present to you a wonderful student-collaboration activity that will get your students involved and excited for a character analysis for any novel, […]
Not only will cutting sheets help teach your child how to cut properly, but they offer great practice for cutting a straight line.
I teach students about art, creativity, and visual problem solving at Carthage Junior High. My wife is also an art teacher, and my three kids are all into their own arts, music, drama, imaginary unicorn development!
This printable Frankenstein Halloween Scissor Skills Haircut Activity is such fun! A great way for kids to enjoy developing their scissor skills this spooky season!
In this blog post, I'm going to give you 5 Social Emotional Learning Art Ideas that you can use in your Art Classroom! As well, I'll tell you about what Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is, how to instruct it, and how to encourage students to engage in the lessons. I'll give you lesson ideas that you can use right away with your students, and I will also give you links to Art Projects that are ready-to-use! Before we begin, let’s understand what Social Emotional Learning, or SEL is and what it can look like in the art classroom or through art!
Art Lesson Plans for Art Teachers to save you time and restore your work/life balance. Let The Arty Teacher do the work for you.
Invitation To Create: Robot Lab. Open ended creative paper craft for kids. Great for color and shape recognition & fine motor development. Perfect for preschoolers, kindergartners, and elementary students.
Design your own T Shirt. This printable summer coloring page is great for creating and decorating your own summer clothes.
7 Effective Love and Logic Strategies for the Classroom % %
FREE printable game for toddlers and preschoolers to match pets with their cages or homes. Great for language development and learning about animals.
Help students plan their individual artworks!This acts as a pre-assessment, establishes an understanding of revision and reflection, and also integrates smoothly as a part of a modified choice art classroom, geared to elementary grades. In order to help students develop their art skills, we as teach...
Jean Piaget was a psychologist who focused on child development. Piaget is arguably most well-known[...]
These ABA therapy activities for kids with autism spectrum disorder will give you heaps of ideas you can use at school, in therapy, and at home!
FREE printable Paper Hats that kids can color and wear when learning about community helpers, occupations, or when doing dramatic and pretend play. Great for preschool and kindergarten!
Scaffolded High School Curriculum Curriculum Design % %
Cross-curricular connections are a phenomenal way to help our students develop deeper knowledge. Real life isn’t compartmentalized into just math, just reading, just science, or just art. It’s an
Identifying these scientific characteristics can be visualized using this glue and chalk technique that allows students to create their own insect art.
A colleciton of leadership activities for middle school students. Get fun leadership games, leadership lesson plans, as well as student leader exercises.
Greek and Latin roots are the "building blocks" of English and form a powerful framework to nurture students' vocabulary development.
There's a lot of ground to cover when you teach creative narrative writing. Here are 5 creative narrative mini-lessons you should be sure to use!
50 Easy Process Art Activities for Kids
Read about 6 ways to differentiate your writing instruction meaningfully - for any genre #highschoolela #differentiation
