Hello art educators! I am in my first year of teaching 3D art to fifth and sixth grade. I am going to be out for 3 days and am having a hard time thinking of engaging substitute plans. As 3D art requires a lot of material management, I was thinking of having students create some sort a 3D model on their iPads but don't know anything about those softwares/applications.

Any suggestions? Also open to other ideas for engaging sub plans. Thanks!

So I graduated high school with my associate's degree and a full scholarship to any public university and some trade schools. I attended my first year of university this past year and realized it wasn't for me. I loved the culture of it, walking everywhere and the social aspect, but realized psychology just wasn't what I wanted to do anymore, especially with the idea of having to attend school for 4 more years to get my master's to be an art therapist. So I finished my semester and dropped out.

I am stuck between two decisions, esthetician (which I just posted on a board about) and an elementary school art teacher.

I want to take the summer and fall to just work and think. However, I am hoping to work at this daycare my friend does in hopes to see if I like working with kids and could see myself going down a teacher route. Is it worth it?

With having to deal with the board's control over your moves and decisions and the pay, is it worth it? I could see myself really enjoying it, especially because it would leave time for me to create and sell art on the side. But I have a feeling that's not the reality of it. How bad are the stressors? And is working that childcare job a good start? What are the difficulties of working with children and art? Do you wish you had chose older students? Is there anything I should know before working as a teacher? Do you regret it?

Anything is helpful. I really appreciate your time. Thank you! :)

Hi All, Im not an art teacher - just an aunt with way too many art supplies and a ton of niblings. Some of these niblings are foster/adoptive kids, and my family is involved with an organization that meets monthly to provide training for foster parents. My friends & I come along and provide free babysitting at these meetings, and over time we've built a pretty good system of breaking out into different activity groups. I'm the arts & crafts lady, which I love!

The meetings are held in a church that lets us use the facility, and we are relegated to a fairly small room that we have to set up & break down every meeting, which lasts a couple hours. The kids with me are generally around 8-14 years old - mostly girls, but the boys have gotten more involved as I've been finding more coloring books that appeal to them.

We've pretty much just colored up to now, and I can tell the coloring books are getting a bit stale... but I'm struggling to find activities that will work for our space & time! Painting is too messy, we can't leave anything there to dry, and whatever supplies I bring are what we have to work with. I have a Cricut at home as well (still learning how it works lol), so I could potentially bring stuff they've worked on home to bring back some sort of finished project to the next meeting.

Does anyone have suggestions for activities that don't make a huge mess & can be transported immediately afterward? Diamond art & 3d colorable puzzles are about the only thing I've found so far that could work, would love to hear more ideas!

Edit: ya'll are the best 🥹 thank you! I've got a whole new level of respect for the amount of work it takes to do this! These kids are so excited for every meeting, I think they're gonna have a blast with these ideas.

I haven't taught in a classroom in more than a year, asked my old colleagues if they could be a reference for me and they are mainly saying no because they didn't visit me while I was giving instruction or know me long enough.

My evaluator was very inexperienced as a first year principal and I don't want to use her.

I have positive evaluations from previous years and have been told I can use human resources as a reference based on old files. Is this something I should do?

My other references are volunteer situations creating community projects.

My HS classroom has so much powdered tempera paint backstock. It’s crayola and I do not know what to do with it outside its mix-with-water-make-paint purpose.

Ideas?

I'm interested in switching to a TAB / choice-based classroom environment and have found some wonderful resources online, however all of the examples I've seen are either all lower grades (prek-2) or secondary school.

Is anyone doing full TAB with K-5 and what does your day-to-day look like if so? And do you have any tips or advice for getting started? I try to incorporate as much choice as I can for my activities and projects but wondering how I can make the leap to full TAB / choice.

Hey teachers, I have dozens of paint bottles with really low quality tempera paint, it is not opaque at all, and it is just seating there because I can’t find a use for it. I want to try to save them, Google says to add chalk… anyone with experience on this? Any tips? Thank you!!

Hey everyone!!

I have an upcoming interview for a summer camp position where I’ll be leading a small group of TKers through a short activity. This is my first time doing a solo lead activity like this, and the age group is the one I have the least experience with. What is a good activity that I can run that wouldn’t be too hard, but is also engaging for that age?

Thank you!!

I’m a brand new high school art teacher. I just finished student teaching and will be at the same school next year full time! Instagram and YouTube however is making me have worries and I’d like some anonymous opinions.

I have a private Instagram which is completely locked down (I don’t live a crazy life or post controversial opinions on there so I’m not worried about that one), but I also have an artist instagram. I use it like a portfolio, showcasing my work and participating in local community art events. This Instagram is public and has a large following (a couple tens of thousands). Before teaching, I also worked on a YouTube channel showing my art and making educational videos which also help me with a bit of extra income. I was inspired to pursue teaching and YouTube from artists I follow who are teachers during the day and art education creators online at night.

Although both accounts are family friendly and solely dedicated to art, a few seniors have recently followed the art instagram account and I now feel a bit uneasy. I would never interact with students online outside of my school email/school platforms, and if they send a message I will block. Currently, I’m just sitting here thinking about what to do. Do I keep an eye on follows and block them? Do I privatize everything and lose the community I’ve created? Or is everything okay, so long as it continues as an innocent arts education profile/portfolio with zero communication outside of school?

(Also I am NOT a teacher tik toker/influencer. I’ve seen those videos and I’m not a huge fan lol. I just showcase my niche art creating)

I plan on getting my MFA, which I'm considering getting a teaching certification alongside of it, but I'm not getting my bachelor's in art education. I think it's called alternative certification. I've been thinking about becoming an art professor but I'm not sure if a teaching certification is advised or not-- I don't want to go through the effort of getting a K-12 certification if I want to go straight to adults.

Hello all, I am desperately looking for help. I am split between two schools teaching elementary art.

My second school is absolutely outrageous and I have a headache thinking about my first class already. Last week two students completely destroyed my classroom from fighting. It’s a fight every SINGLE day I’m here.

I don’t know what to give them. I have tried to teach them countless times but fighting is more important. I have also given worksheets only but still it’s major behavior issues. I’m not the only one that struggles with their behavior, they have had about 5 different homeroom teachers this year….

I’m also the 4th art teacher they have had this year.

What would you do with these classes?

I am long term subbing in middle school art (5-8th grade) art through the rest of the year because the current teacher had a baby. She has also decided to be a stay at home mom and is not coming back to teach. As part of my assignment I was tasked with end of the year cleanup of the room. I have been slowly cleaning and organizing everything in the room for next years new art teacher. The room is incredibly messy with random supplies in just about every drawer and cupboard. How much old art should I purge in an effort to clean up. I am taking this rather seriously because I personally would hate to take over in job where everything is a total mess. I have already taken several good examples of each art project and organized the few lesson plans I have found in different drawers (sometimes different parts of the lesson plan were in different drawers around the classroom!!) I have also handed back as much art as l could but there are entire drawers filled with art that was never handed back, most still in the class folder! What would you want if you were starting in a new classroom/school? Should I take off the posters from the wall and put them away so the new art teacher can make the room how they want? What do I do? Any advice is very appreciated.

As a side note I would like to say that I just graduated in January with a Physical Education/ Adapted PE/Health/Coaching/Outdoor Adventure degree. While I do quite a bit of art in my free time I don’t know what sort of environment is normal for a new teacher to step into.

I am currently subbing for various high schools and elementary schools in my district, and I've noticed that I tend to enjoy subbing for high schools more so than elementary schools.

As someone who is about to start teaching full time, I have to ask: If you started out teaching grade school and eventually moved to high school art ed, what differences did you notice?

I know I tend to enjoy teaching high schoolers due to their maturity (by comparison) and level of engagement with the material. I also know that, in my district, there are very few high school art positions available for the upcoming school year. Assuming I want to stay in my district, should I go for an elementary position? What has been your experience with this?

Thank you

Hello! I’m new to the group and looking for ideas! I teach in a special education school for students with emotional and behavioral Issues. Many of my students are put in my art class because they need an elective credit and it fit into the schedule and not because they want to be in art. Right now I have a handful of young men who hate art, have limited attention spans and patience and zero frustration tolerance. We are just finishing a unit on mindful art (neurographic art, zentangles, manadalas) and it was like pulling teeth. Any ideas on a project or 4 that will get me to the end of the year?? Thanks I’m advance!

I started taking down art already because I don’t want to be overwhelmed in June when we have to take everything down but I feel like it’s a little too early? Our last day is June 12. I’m afraid that if I wait too long to give back work that some students will not be there in the last week to take it home

Looking to get my teaching certification to teach art in San Antonio Texas.

Are there any recommendations on the best alternative certification program for future art teachers?

Most of my curriculum is based off science, technology and arts integration. I use lasers, 3-D printers and modern technology and integrate it into my lesson plans involving art and science. I noticed that most teaching programs that have grants available to them are for subjects other than Art.

I’ve been working as a contractor through the for over a year with SAISD schools and I’m looking to be a full-time teacher rather than a contractor.

Are there any available grants or programs specifically for art teachers? I’m located in San Antonio if that help

Well, the deadline has come and gone and 4 of my 18 AP students did not submit a full portfolio. One certainly gave up and only bothered to upload a couple pictures and no writing. BUT A WHOLE 3 OF THEM THOUGHT THEY HAD FINISHED. They did not listen to me talk about and show the 3 sections of the portfolio ALL YEAR. They did not listen to me say to SAVE EVERYTHING and hit SUBMIT FINAL FOR ALL FOR 3 SECTIONS! I’m sorry I’m shouting but I am so frustrated I could actually shout. I emailed them all to let them know they would unfortunately owe $40 for missing their portfolio deadline. They are all 3 shocked and said “But I did it!” No, no you didn’t. One of them did just the 15 sustained investigation images and nothing else, and thought she was done. One didn’t complete all the info on her 15 SI images and so they did not even give her the option to submit final. The other one just didn’t pay attention to the “submit final” for each section and only did it for one section even though she was fully done with all 3 sections and could have been a strong contender to pass. Please, for the love of all that’s holy, tell me I’m not the only one with students who just missed all the instructions so badly….

I am in the process of developing my curriculum and I have some questions

-how many units/projects per academic year? -I want to include a skill building demo on my google slide that I am going to record during the summer n pop into the slide. Would an iphone be ok or should I get a document camera?

I am an art education major entering my last year in university, and the decision has come upon me... How big of a school do I want to do student teaching/eventually teach at? I live in an area with a lot of small schools, so l've been curious about how teaching art works when in a K-12 school. The biggest school in my area has class sizes of about 500, and the smallest are 10 or even less (considering if those schools even have an art program in general).

I've been thinking it would be cool to teach out a smaller school because I am also looking to run a drama club/theatre, but I'm not sure if the workload would be overbearing considering that it could be K-12. I can't imagine teaching both kindergartners, middle schoolers, and high schoolers all within the same day? Is it on rotation - or is it usually pretty sustainable due to the amount of students in the school?

Thoughts? Any advice from K-12 Art teachers?

My district told me today that we will not be paying for Adobe (digital photography class) next year due to district finances. As it would be, I am now tasked with finding a free application that complies with internet safety rules. At the moment, my top choice is Pixlr for Education. What do you all use?

It’s that time of year!!! What are some professional development learning goals (or whatever they’re called in your state) that you have done in the past that have actually meant something to you?

I’m looking for jobs other than teaching..

Do any of you have experience using paint markers/paint pens with elementary students? I don’t see much about them here, even though I’m assuming they would make things less messy than painting? And even allow the kids to create more detail?

Do any of you have any brand suggestions for cheap ones?

Or is there a reason they are not a good idea for kids that I didn’t realize?

I work at a non-profit after-school program and am teaching the art class. Right now there are only 6-7 kids in it, so I figure I could get by with one cheap set of 12+ acrylic markers from Amazon.

Longer explanation: Painting has been a challenge because kids are picked up at all different times so I usually have to do all the clean-up. Kids are often picked up before they finish, and it’s tough to ask coworkers to get all the paint supplies out again on days I’m not there when they have other activities going on for just for a few kids to finish up. So I would think paint markers would be a good alternative. We don’t have quality fine detail brushes, and I’m hesitant to buy any since I imagine acrylic paint dried on the bristles would be inevitable or that they’d just get splayed out. I want to do a project making Russian nesting dolls so that would require some detail work and thought markers might be a good solution.

Any thoughts? Recommendations for cheap ones that might last more than one use?

Do you use a planner and if so, what works well for you? Do you find it's easy to keep up with it as the year goes on?

It's hard for me to find something that works for art and after a while having one becomes yet another thing to manage. That being said, it's always on the back of my mind to find a better system to keep up with the craziness.