Inside: A complete earthworks art lesson about The Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson, including an earthworks definition and activity ideas. Earthworks Definition Earthworks, also known as land art or environmental art, is an art movement that involved artists using natural materials, such as soil or vegetation, to create an artwork in the place where the…
Artmaking
The Very Best Gifts for Teenage Artists – Art Supplies for Teens
Inside: An art supplies for teens gift guide! Affordable, quality art supplies that will take your teen artist’s work to the next level! For your convenience, I have included Amazon affiliate links. Purchases made through these links help support Art Class Curator at no additional cost to you. Good Art Supplies for Teens: I focused…
How to Get Free Supplies for Your Classroom
Inside: Find out how to get free classroom art supplies so your students can discover the magic of art! Empty Classroom Cabinets I started teaching elementary art in a urban, South Dallas school back in 2008. Seeing my classroom for the first time was a shock! I had boxes upon boxes of faded construction paper scraps,…
Beyond Selfies: Unshuttering High School Photography Fundamentals
Inside: An examination of the teen-oriented social platform Getty Unshuttered and how its challenges can be used for high school photography lessons. This post is brought to you by WeAreTeachers and Getty Unshuttered. Our lives were inundated with images long before the internet or smartphones came along. We’re a visual species and we’ve been creating images…
Create a Flipbook Inspired by Early Photography
Inside: Enhance your middle and high school photography lessons with this interactive lesson on the history of photography, and then create flip books for kids in response to the innovations of Eadweard Muybridge. Last week, I told you all about Eadweard Muybridge Horse in Motion which led to the beginning of the first moving pictures…
Making Art with Kids: Chagall-Inspired Drawings
For blog inspiration, I just flipped through all my photos from my elementary art teaching days to find a lesson to write about. Usually I avoid this because it usually provokes some PTSD teaching dreams, but that’s a story for another day. 🙂 This lesson is inspired by one of my favorite artists, Marc Chagall….
7 Exciting Art History for Kids Projects that Made Me Say “WOW!”
Inside: This collection of exciting art history for kids projects will excite your students with creative process art at the same time as connecting with an artist from art history. These art history for kids projects are so clever! While I was developing the Art History for Kids pinboard, I came across approximately 400 projects based…
The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush Sunset Art Project
On the blog and in our homeschool, I’ve been focused on Native Americans for the last month. I introduced the Plain Indians to my children and did this beautiful art project inspired by a Native American legend. This post contains affiliate links. Thanks for your support! After introducing Native Americans in previous lesson, we read…
Glassblowing Field Trip and Activity
With one of our homeschool groups, we recently had the opportunity to visit Dallas Glass Art, a glass studio in downtown Dallas, for a tour and to see a demonstration. Glassblowing is one of my bucket list items, so I was so thrilled to have the experience for myself as well as provide a fun…
Making Art with Kids: Block Printing Lesson
Block printing is one of my favorite things to do with kids (and with myself for that matter, who needs a kid to have fun with art?). Later in the week, I will be featuring some Japanese woodblock prints as part of my Art Spotlight series, so in preparation for that, I will show you…
Analyzing Presidential Campaign Commercials: A Visual Culture Lesson Plan
When I was in grad school for Art Education, I took a class on Visual Culture. I really enjoyed the class and thinking outside of the box when it comes to defining what art is and what should be taught in an art class. During that semester, there was an amazing exhibit at the Sixth…
Ocean Process Art
We’re studying the ocean in our homeschool, so we couldn’t resist having a little process art fun in the driveway with my friend her her kids. I may have gone a bit overboard on this one, but the kids had a blast! First, I rolled out a big sheet of blue butcher paper onto the…
Paper Sculpture Project Inspired by Geometric MADI Art
About 10 years ago, the MADI Museum opened here in Dallas, and I had no idea what MADI was. Madi? That’s not a thing, is it? Turns out it is. Have you ever heard of MADI? It’s a little-known 20th-century art movement out of Argentina. Yesterday, I showed my girls some MADI art, and we…
27 Creative Printmaking Projects for Kids
My most popular post on Art Class Curator is my tutorial on all things block printing. I’m constantly finding other super creative ways to do printmaking with kids, so I compiled a massive list for you of some other ideas! Check out these awesome printmaking ideas for kids, and try one out! I love these…
12 Ways to Integrate Science and Art
My 13 Art and Math Projects for Kids post has been doing pretty well on my site lately, so I decided to keep the art integration going with Science! Check out these awesome ways to teach science using art below. There are tons of projects out there online that integrate art and science, but the…
Japanese Woodblock Prints Lesson for Kids
A few months ago, I got an awesome Facebook message from a reader, Kim, who used one of my resources in such an excellent and creative way. I would like to share what she did with my post and printable 36 Views of Mount Fuji by Hokusai. Kim runs a small Montessori homeschool preschool for…
Marshall Islands Stick Chart Lesson Plan and Art Project
We’re traveling today to the the Marshall Islands, an island county in the Pacific ocean. The country is spread out over 1,156 individual islands near the Equator and consists of a population of over 68,000 people. You can imagine that being spread out over that many islands, you would need to develop some systems for…
Where the Wild Things Are Art Project
One of my favorite projects I did with my elementary students was an art project inspired by the amazing children’s book by Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are. Maurice Sendak Maurice Sendak is a beloved children’s book illustrator and author. He wrote and/or illustrated about 100 books in his life. His most renowned work…
Creating Art Alongside your Children “En Plein Air”
Today is my last Friday guest post! For the last two months, I have enjoyed so many diverse voices on the blog each Friday sharing experiences making art with kids. I love this guest post from Betsy Finn from BPhotoArt.com. Art is such a great way to connect together, and this is such a nice…
Balloon Painted Rainbow
I’m thrilled to present this guest post from Jamie at Hand Made Kids Art. Her blog is such a great resource for preschool art, STEAM, and creativity. Please check out her fun activity she did for us here at Art Class Curator, and then hop over to her blog to see all of the other…
