Category:Organization

I recently found some very inexpensive metal boxes designed to hold tissue boxes or rolls.

Recently, I discovered these shop ticket holders as being available in more sizes than I would have thought. When I found out I could get them to fit 12×18 drawing paper, I knew they would be great for slipping artwork examples inside.

This solves a problem with pencil/pen holders…

I’ve designated a magnetic chalkboard to the side of my classroom as an ideal place to post daily objectives, vocabulary, current activities, extra credit, past due work, etc…

My intention this year is to work on a set of unit vocabulary posters featuring visual cues.

This year I am trying posting signs to let students know what they need to retrieve as the arrive in class.

Nice little baskets for standard copy paper found at Dollar Tree.

These days I try to consistently use the first few minutes of class for “Bell Ringers” or “Bell Work”. The main benefit for me to transition the students into the routines for my class. It also keeps me consistent with their other classes and an initiative on our campus. We spend anywhere from 5-10 minutes. …
Continue reading Art Class Bell Ringers

By far the best solution for students without at pencil, in my own experience, has been the stubby, eraserless, “golf” pencils. Students know that they don’t even have to ask. If they don’t have a pencil, grab one. If they only have a mechanical pencil and a wooden one is more suitable for the task, …
Continue reading Pencil Problems

While the security policy allows teachers to have classrooms unlocked on my campus. For a number of reasons, I prefer to leave the actual mechanism in the “always locked” configuration.This way I don’t have to lock and unlock it every time I step away. Students who arrive late, hall pass users, students who are called …
Continue reading Easy Re-Entry

I have a library of resource folders, booklets and sleeves for student use. I keep all resources for a project together in a set for each table that I can provide year after year…updating them as needed. I have manilla sleeves, plastic sleeves (all color coded) containing laminated sheets or stapled booklets of handouts, examples, …
Continue reading Resource Booklets

This semester, I glued my furniture cups to the floor with a clear variety of Gorilla glue. The glue drying clear is an improvement over the amber-brown color of original Gorilla Glue I have used in the past. I tried one in an inconspicuous area first. After a few days the cup was easily removed from …
Continue reading Wander-proof Tables

In searching for a solution for hanging art in my newly renovated classroom, I settled on Grip Strip rails. I purchased three 4 foot rails and three 8 foot rails for the wall in my room. Inside the rail is a series of plastic cylinders. Slide a paper in the rail and it tucks behind …
Continue reading Grip strips

Getting back into my old classroom after renovations are complete. It’s been a lot of work but day one was successful. Still a lot of supplies to gradually bring back in.  

I visited my old classroom last month to check out the progress on the renovations. They had the wallboard up and appeared to be working on the heating/AC duct work. No significant room layout change other than an added storage room, lower ceiling and it appear I will have less windows.

My classes meet in a small portable bulding this year. To make better use of the space I have set up my tables in continuous rows. I bought some cheap lashing straps to attached all three tables in each row together. They function as one table and stay neatly aligned. I’ve been pretty pleased with …
Continue reading Furniture Alignment

My art room is now set up in a portable building for the 2015-2016 school year. It’s tighter quarters than I am used to but things are working out fine.

It has been an unusually busy start for the first of the year. Renovations begin in my building this year so I had to move out of my classroom. I’ll conduct classes in a portable building classroom for now. The plan is to move back for the 2016-2017 school year.

I had some problems with the old ipod that I use to play background music in my classroom. Until I get it figured out I made some DVDs with Windows Movie Maker. I combined some instrumental music with some footage of close-up lava lamp action and then used a separate video converter to render it in a …
Continue reading Musak Video

As students work on projects, I find it beneficial to play some instrumental background music. With the right music selections, it tends to set a relaxing mood and helps them stay on task. In this post, I thought I would comment on what kinds of music I have found to work well.

I have not arrived at the perfect solution to students neglecting to identify their artwork. There always seems to be a handful of papers with no name and so, cannot be graded. One helpful strategy has been to designate a place that students can retrieve unidentified artwork. For me, installing some clips at the back …
Continue reading Mystery Art

I’m the type who will lose track of time while focusing on other things and be caught off-guard by the bell to dismiss class. Of course, the bell ringing before my students have been instructed to put away materials once in a while is not a big deal. Still, I would choose to be consistent …
Continue reading Subtle Reminder

In efforts to better organize my room and materials, I put a lot of time in preparing student reference materials to be used more easily year after year. Student reference materials are simply hard copies of examples and instructions. Some are, of necessity, printed in color…which means they are not cheap to produce and need to be …
Continue reading Organizing Reference Material

If a classroom door needs to be left ajar, these door cushions work well. They are intended to keep toddlers from getting fingers pinched but they also work well to prevent a door from slamming or latching. Tethering with some cord keeps it from wandering off. It’s a simple shape constructed of dense foam rubber, …
Continue reading Bumper

Art teachers jealously guard their collection of artwork examples. Irreplaceable. Some are teacher-created examples to be sure but the bulk of the collection often consists of student art that has been abandoned or left behind over the years. A few years ago, I set up a method for organizing my project examples. It has proven to …
Continue reading Where Did I Put That?

These things are great! Nylon caps with felt pads for the feet of your classroom chairs. They are silent and they prevent those streaks, scuffs and worn areas on the floor. Forget about those ridiculous looking tennis balls stuck on chair legs. When I got these, my concern was that the felt base would not last …
Continue reading Care for the Chair

It’s probably unusual for a teacher to prefer not to have a sharpener permanently installed. For the most part, I rely on handheld sharpeners in my classes. Even before I shifted to the manual sharpeners, I didn’t care for having a wall-mounted crank model permanently installed. My solution was to have a crank sharpener mounted to a …
Continue reading Portable Pencil Point Processor

Thanks to my wife for pointing this out to me a few years ago. Inexpensive, door-hanging, shoe racks are great for art supplies in the classroom. They are particularly well-suited, I have found, for pencil and marker sorting.

I’ve had a lot of luck in my classes with these zipper supply bags. The ones I purchased were from Dick Blick and I was originally concerned that the zippers would not hold up. A couple of year later they are in good shape even with daily use.  One had a zipper tab fall off…just …
Continue reading Zipper Supply Bags