This week they are finally stripping and waxing the floors in my high school art room so I've spent a lot of time at home working on school ...
With these classroom management strategies, your room will have order and your students will thrive. Quickly create your classroom management plan here!
As I am looking forward to a new school year in my new school, I have already started planning and creating new resources. Since I have my classroom now and I can finally make the big decisions about the teaching materials I would love to use, I am all excited to be able to say good-bye to textbooks and use what I believe best responds to my learners’ needs. If you are looking for some engaging and valuable resources for your textbook-less ESL class or you wish to supplement your own materials,
I’ve been using a Word Wall with my high school students for 9 years now, and the results have been incredible. How: I have 90-minute classes, so I’m able to give my students 8-10 minutes of free reading time each day. I put this time at the BEGINNING of the class for several reasons. 1. ... Read More about How and Why to Use Word Walls with Older Students
If you are a secondary science teacher, I can bet that you are probably pretty tired from all of the responsibilities that go into your job. It can be hard to come up with ways to engage students in your classroom that don't require a TON of behind-the-scenes prep work on your end. But have no fear, I am here to share my FAVORITE no-prep student-centered activities with you.
These ideas of fun ways to teach mitosis are fun for both students and teachers. This list includes some classic ideas and few new modern approaches.
So the 1st day of school in high school science is approaching and you don't know what exactly to do with your students. There is so much
These ideas of fun ways to teach mitosis are fun for both students and teachers. This list includes some classic ideas and few new modern approaches.
These 5 geometry projects for middle or high school are a great alternative assessment for your student. Project-based learning is so important to...
Some of my favorite days in the classroom happen when I facilitate a breakout room activity. Breakout room days are always fast-paced, invigorating, and a
Listen to this Special Ed Podcast with 15 great ideas for Functional Centers for students with Intellectual Disabilities and Autism in High School. Read more and subscribe today!
Teaching literature skills to students is an important part of your English Language Arts program. Get some ready to use teaching ideas from this blog.
“The essential mission of school science was to prepare pupils for civilized citizenship by revealing to them something of the beauty and the power of the world in which they lived, as well a…
Do your kids struggle with understanding metaphor? Perhaps they need to take the metaphor challenge!
Now that the 2017-2018 school year has come to a close, I am spending some time reflecting on my practice as an educator. While there were some lows of the
A digital escape room includes all of the same concepts as a physical escape room, but instead takes place in a video game like setting...
Digital Escape Room for Secondary Classrooms: Quick Tips What are Digital Escape Rooms? Digital Escape Rooms are activities that stude...
Starting a new semester— whether at the beginning of the school year or calendar year— is a time of tough transition as we begin to restart our minds and work habits. Here are SEVEN engaging activities for the first week back to school in middle school and high school English Language Arts.
When it comes to teaching close reading and annotation, is there anything worse than seeing your students mindlessly highlighting for pages and pages with no real understanding of what they're highlighting or why they're highlighting it? The frustrating part is that highlighting indicates that they're trying, but it often shows that they don't understand why.
Listen to this Special Ed Podcast with 15 great ideas for Functional Centers for students with Intellectual Disabilities and Autism in High School. Read more and subscribe today!
When the typical chemistry course brings nothing but frustration, is it okay to teach homeschool high school chemistry in a different way? In one word: Yes!
The best "icebreaker" activity for high school students (who hate icebreaker activities). Get a jump start on creating a bond with your students.
Blacklight Unit Materials: Fluorescent fixtures ($10 at Wal-Mart suggest getting 2) Blacklight bulbs (4ft ones at WM cost $12 each. For two fixtures, need 4 bulbs) Highlighters White colored Pencils Reams of colored office paper (they end up nonreactive to UV light) Ream of yellow/goldenrod office paper Reams of regular office paper (they are reactive) Fluorescent paints (can now get from many art suppliers like Blick) Pens Day one. Review classroom expectations. Turn on backlights and let the students explore and look at their belongings. Talk about blacklight properties, wavelengths, (science component) etc. Studio- Invisible Drawing Pass out drawing paper that is reactive to the light. Pass out white colored pencils and students draw on the glowing paper. The white colored pencils show up dark on the glowing paper. Turn off the blacklight and on the regular lights. The drawing disappears! Highlighter drawings Have any students who have highlighters bring them out. Trade out the paper for one that does not glow in blacklight…. Draw with highlighters to get a neon sign effect… students really like this one. Before and after drawings Have students brainstorm over different situations that would best be described with two pictures, such as Bruce Wayne turning into Batman, or leaves on then falling off a tree, day vs. night, etc. They should pick one scenario, and on goldenrod office paper, draw the first scene in pen in regular light. Then, when all are finished, turn the black light on, and the second drawing is made directly on top of the first using yellow highlighter. In the regular light the yellow highlighter is hard to see, and in the blacklight, the pen is hard to see. Talk about filling up all the space with loose crosshatching or objects. This masks the highlighter drawing better. Do not completely darken any areas, since the highlighter will not work on that. When all are finished, turn on the lights and pass the paper to a neighbor. Turn on the blacklight and the image will change! Turn on the regular lights again and the blacklight off, and pass papers again... Repeat until everyone has seen everyone else’s drawing. Day four, five Prep day for glow in the dark radial designs. Hand out non-reactive paper and have students create a simple radial design using pencil. By folding the paper it is easy to recreate exact copies by rubbing the back and transferring the image across. When all are done, pass out the fluorescent paint and paint in the designs. Hang in the room for display. Radial design using French Curves: Get a square paper and fold from corners and sides to find center. Use ruler to go over the fold lines. Use a compass to draw a large circle. The grid formed will aid in repeatedly tracing using the French curves. Pick a French curve and a location. Draw the center x or the circle x on the tool. You also need at least one line as reference. Copy section. Move the tool to the next position and realign the marks to the next location. Copy section. If there is overlap or missing section, adjust. Continue until it is repeated 8 times. Repeat the process with different French curves until paper has a completed radial design. Paint. Before and after Project 1. Brainstorm over different situations that would best be described with two pictures, such as Bruce Wayne turning into Batman, or leaves on then falling off a tree, day vs. night, etc. 2. Pick one scenario, and on goldenrod office paper, draw the first scene in pen in regular light. 3. Then, when all are finished, turn the black light on, and the second drawing is made directly on top of the first using yellow highlighter. In the regular light the yellow highlighter is hard to see, and in the blacklight, the pen is hard to see. Fill up all the space with loose crosshatching or objects. This masks the highlighter drawing better. Do not completely darken any areas, since the highlighter will not work on that. 4. When all are finished, turn on the lights and pass the paper to a neighbor. Turn on the blacklight and the image will change! Turn on the regular lights again and the blacklight off, and pass papers again... Repeat until everyone has seen everyone else’s drawing. BEFORE AND AFTER EXAMPLE LIST Riding bike or skateboard/ crash Spiderman swinging/ landing on a building Clark Kent/ superman Bruce Wayne/ Batman Bruce Banner/ Hulk Man turning into Wolfman Dracula turn into bat Cake, cake gone Apple, apple core Woman pregnant/ thinner holding a baby Pizza / bite gone Weakling with dumbbells/ muscular after Calm to angry Happy to sad Peaceful to angry Day to night Summer to fall Fall to winter Winter to spring Snowman/ melted Sitting in a chair/ it breaks and crash Animal crossing road/ road-kill Caterpillar/ butterfly Tadpole/ frog A tree / losing its leaves Blowing bubble with gum/ it pops on face
If you're a high school science teacher (or a soon-to-be high school science teacher), I'd like to share with you how I preferred to start the year with my freshmen and sophomores- and why! Though I
Check out these high school teacher ideas for teaching photosynthesis and respiration with animations and hands-on activities
FREE rewards that teachers can give their students that will not cost any money, while at the same time, promoting a fun and interactive classroom atmosphere.
Do you want to know the secondary classroom procedure I can't live without??
Teaching struggling readers at the high school level? Scaffold their comprehension by focusing on these four important reading strategies.
Are you looking for ways to make learning more meaningful in your Secondary ELA Classroom? Check out these twenty five creative project ideas that I have found to be meaningful and successful while also motivating for learners.
I am a sucker for handmade posters in my classroom. From inspirational quotes to anchor charts for ELA and math, my room is full of them!Some of them I hand drew on poster board or
Interested in using anchor charts with older students? Read about benefits, best practices, and materials to make the experience a success.
5 Simple Classroom Management Solutions for the High School Art Room % %
I'm finally back from maternity leave and ready to teach (kinda)! Can I bring my baby with me? Can he be my assistant? No? Awe. :( Towards the end of the last school year, I came back from my maternity leave early so that I could work the two days of post-planning. I decided it would be best if I were the one to clean up and put away my classroom, so I’d know where everything was when I officially returned. Last school year, we had to take EVERYTHING off of the walls so that our custodial staff could clean them during the summer. And while it was a pain to take everything down, it did give me a blank slate for the new school year! Fun Fact: My classroom looks HUGGGGEEEE when it’s empty! This post contains some relevant affiliate links. SET OF DRAWERS Before I went back for pre-planning this year, I started work on a colorful new set of drawers for my classroom. The idea was that I would use each drawer to store all of my prepped paper for each of my grade-level projects (that way it wouldn’t end up all over my desk and every other flat surface in my room like usual). So I got online and found the perfect set of drawers from Target. As you can imagine I was overjoyed when I saw that the drawers could hold 12″x18″ paper – an art teacher’s dream! Unfortunately in all my excitement, I neglected to thoroughly read the product description and ended up buying a unit whose overall dimensions were 12″ deep by 18″ long; the drawers themselves were much smaller. And of course I didn’t realize all of this until after I had already primed and repainted all the drawer covers and assembled the whole thing. Upset with this realization, I took to Instagram where a fellow art teacher gave me the amazingly awesome idea to use the drawers to organize my scrap paper by color instead. TABLES AND STOOLS Once pre-planning started it was all about getting my classroom put together. My first project was to paint the edges of my tables and stools to color-code them! For the past several years I used colored masking tape to color-code my tables, but as I’m sure many of you already know – kids LOVE picking at tape! I was constantly having to replace it as it got worn and torn in order to save my sanity. The sanity that was slowly being picked away with every scratch of the fingernail. Yeah… I’m a bit of a perfectionist. 🙂 So I was more than relieved when my administration gave me the green light to use paint in my room instead! The tables in my classroom have a laminate surface on them, so the first step was to lightly sand the sides of my tables. My husband (who is not a carpenter, mind you) suggested that I use 220 grit sandpaper. In retrospect however, I wish I would’ve gone with something a little lower so that it would’ve scratched up the sides a bit more. Butttttttttt you live and you learn. After sanding, I cleaned off the laminate shrapnel, then taped off the table edges and started painting using a small roller and Behr Marquee paint (this paint already has the primer mixed into it). Each table took about 3 coats to fully cover the sides (I wasn’t using the 1-coat guarantee colors). After the paint was dry, I removed the painters tape and then used an oil-based sharpie paint marker to write my table numbers (I use these for classroom jobs). Once that had a chance to dry, I painted overtop of everything with coat of glossy mod-podge. When painting my stools, I just went straight in with the paint and then covered with mod-podge as well (in retrospect I could have done without the mod-podge on the chairs). **UPDATE: This particular type of paint didn't stay very well (still very pickable). So I took it off and repainted with Martha Stewart multi-surface acrylic and sealed it with Delta Creative polyurethane varnish. It is working INSANELY better. TABLE BUCKETS This year I used the same type of bins I've used in past years.. but got some nice new ones that weren't colored all over (who doesn't love shiny and new?). To color-code the bins I once again used ribbon. Click here to see how to attach it! I also created some new labels and then added those on as well to help my students know where to put things away. CENTERS Once again, I will be using art centers as part of my classroom management plan! In my classroom I do a table point system using Class Dojo. When students are doing what they are supposed to be doing (coming in quietly, being on task, helping each other, cleaning up on time, etc), they receive table points. When they aren’t following directions (being too loud, being super off task, not cleaning up, etc), they lose them. The way I record all of this in Class Dojo is by having 6 “classes” set up (one for each grade-level). Then in each class I have 8 “students” (one for each of my table colors). Since I see my students multiple days in a row before they rotate to their next special, I use only one class for each grade-level, then reset their points once their rotation is over so it’s back to zero for the next group. So what is the motivation to earn points? Great question! The number of points each table has determines which art centers they can participate in during free time (once a project is finished). Each center has a point value assigned to it. Once a table has that many points or more, they can use that center. If the table does not have that many points, they cannot. The way I determine how many points each center is depends on the interests of my students. If I know they’ll really enjoy something (like jewelry center), I give it a higher point value. In the past few years that I’ve been using this system, I’ve found a lot of success with it. It keeps my students motivated to make the right choices and rewards them with experiences instead of tangible items (like candy). The centers I currently have in my classroom are: Weaving/Lacing Cards - 1 pt White Boards - 1 pt *This is the one bone that I throw my students. They LOVE white boards! How to Draw Books and Free Draw - 2 pts Pattern Blocks - 3 pts Texture Rubbing - 4 pts Puzzles- 5 pts Origami - 6 pts Spirograph - 7 pts KEVA Contraptions -7 pts. K'NEX - 8 pts Play Doh - 10 pts Jewelry Center - 14 pts ELEMENTS AND PRINCIPLES POSTERS Now this isn't something new.. but the way that I'm displaying it is. I used to have just the elements posters hanging up on my bulletin board, but now I've hung them along with my principles posters to just above my centers (near my classroom door). I also printed them out larger this year. Instead of being 8.5"x11", I printed them out at 13"x18". If you like the look of these posters, be sure to check them out in my store! VISUAL ART WORD WALL CARDS My word wall is probably the single most popular thing in my classroom with my administrators. My thought when I created them and first hung them up was "Cool! Now my kids can see art words and pictures that help those words make sense." My administrators think "Wow! She's incorporating literacy into her art program!" At the end of last year I took down all my word wall cards and tossed them, so this year I had to print them all out again (which was fine with me because I'm made a million updates to them over the past few years). Once I had them all printed out I knew I needed to laminate them. Trying to get stuff laminated through the school in the beginning of the school year can be a bit challenging however, so I decided it was time to invest in my very own home laminator! Guys... I WANT TO LAMINATE EVERYTHING NOW! I mean.. the process of laminating itself is fun AND cutting out things that are laminated is fun. There's just something very rewarding about cutting through laminated paper. Either you know exactly what I'm talking about, or you think I'm crazy. That's okay. I probably am. ;) I personally bought my laminator at Wal-Mart for about $20... but you can also order the same Scotch Thermal Laminator from Amazon (theirs comes with 20 laminating pouches). Once I had all my cards laminated it was time to cut them out. Lucky for me I recently purchased an X-ACTO Commercial Grade 12" x 12" Paper Cutter (off of Amazon) which made cutting them out at home WAY easier. Seriously Amazon gets all of my money. Their 2-day Prime shipping is dangerously convenient. I decided that this year I was going to hang up my word wall cards on my bulletin board instead of the wall so I wouldn't have to cut like 30,000,000 pieces of tape to stick them up. Yay for staples! The only thing I didn't consider before starting was how to keep the cards straight on my bulletin board. 😔 By the time I got to the letter "D" I noticed that my cards were gradually moving upwards. Soooo I took them all down and started again. I'm going to be real with you guys.. I did this a few times. Then FINALLY I figured out an easy way to keep things on track; I measured how far down from my border I wanted the word wall cards to start, and then put a staple at that height along the length of the bulletin board. Helpful tip: Hang your word wall cards BEFORE you hang your bulletin board letters. The letters "C" and "S" have like a gazillion cards, while the letter "U" only has one. If you like my word wall cards, check out my store! If you like the bulletin board letters, you can find them here! *I warn you to not use them on a black background however. Hah! I wish I would've thought that one through! PROJECT ORGANIZATION/STORAGE Like I mentioned before, I see my students a few days in a row before getting my new rotation, so the way I organize and store artwork may not be applicable to your situation. When students are working on dry artwork at their tables, I have them put their work into their table folder at the end of class. The table folder consists of a sheet of 12"x18" construction paper folded in half with the grade-level written on the front. These folders are then stored in my labeled grade-level drawers. So the next time students come to class, I can just put their folder on their table so they can pull out their work and get started (no time wasted calling out names). If their work is wet and needs to be put into the drying rack, I have them place their work on a 1/4 size sheet of posterboard and then slide it into the drying rack within the their table color band (added with colored masking tape). That way work is easily accessible for students to get from the rack or if I want to put stuff up into their table folders once it's dry, I'll know which folder they go into. To help me tell my grade-levels apart (in case they're doing similar projects) I have clothespins with grade-level tags on them that I just clip onto the top of each drying rack. MATERIALS STORAGE Aside from my table buckets (which contain pencils, erasers, colored pencils, color, sticks, and crayons) I have a couple of other ways of storing ready-to-go materials. First are the color-coded baskets I have. If I'm doing a project with a class that has a LOT of materials, I will often use these buckets to pass out supplies for each table. Otherwise I would just call table numbers (how I distribute jobs) and have them come pick up various things. Last year I also started taking advantage of the cabinet storage I have under my countertops and started prepping paints for different classes and storing them under there in copy box lids. At one point I had all this stuff spread out all over my countertop and knew there HAD to be a better way. Using the copy box lids allows me to quickly take out and put away supplies without the giant mess. Last year I also started storing my paintbrushes in labeled drink pitchers. Why? Because it is WAY easier to walk around to distribute them when the container has a handle! And finally - paper storage. I used to have a cardboard holder like this when I was at my old school, but then neglected to bring it with me when I changed schools. This one isn't a revolutionary storage tip - unless you've never used one before. In which case - BOOM! Just blew your mind with its awesomeness! I'm so glad I got one again. :) HALL PASSES Over the past few years, the teachers at my school had been using laminated paper hall passes for our students. The main problem with those though were that they would come back from the bathroom with wet spots on them (is that water or something else?). Eww. So this year our principal had us make our own instead. As she was telling us about this during our staff meeting, she happened to have an example picture of a hall pass on a paintbrush on the PowerPoint slide. Obviously I immediately fell in love! To see my how-to on these paint brushes click here. Now they hang on the back of my door! GENERAL CLASSROOM DECOR These are a few of the other things I have hanging up on my walls. I made these color posters to complement the bulletin board letters I made for my word wall. :) You can get a copy of them here! I moved my shape and form posters from last year onto my large metal storage cabinets so they wouldn't just be wasted space. I also repainted these color mixing posters that I had originally created a few years ago. My old ones were looking pretty worn down. If you don't want to paint your own, consider checking out my TPT store for some smaller printables. CLASSROOM PICTURES If you have questions about anything else you see, please feel free to leave me a comment and I'd be happy to talk to you about it! :) Hope you all have a great school year! Simple Elements/Principles Posters | Art Genre Posters
