Using Art in the Classroom

It’s time for the Wednesday Website suggestion!! For two years, I was the Technology Specialist at a school in Georgia. During that time, I amassed a large collection of websites that I use with my students. If you want to search through some of them, you can check out my IKeepBookmarks site. Or, you can check back here each week for the Wednesday Website suggestion.

 

The school I taught at in Georgia was an Artful Learning school, which helped me focus on all the ways we can use art to connect with our curriculum.  We can use famous pieces of art as a hook to draw students in.  We can use art to talk about good writing characteristics, like using voice and descriptive language.  We can use art to talk about making inferences when reading, as we look at all the details inside a piece of art.  We can use art to connect properties of science, like characteristics of things in nature (animals, rocks, landscapes, etc.).  We can look at art created during different time periods and discuss what the author was going through at the time.  There are so many ways to connect art to the learning that is going on in the classroom. 

Here is a website to help students look at and create artwork in your classroom.  It is called The Art Zone and it is sponsored by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.  While on this website, students have a chance to create portraits, still life pictures, collages, 3-dimensional pieces and more.  They can work on texture, color, brush types, etc.  It’s a great way to get kids working with art – with a whole lot less mess and set-up!  When students are done, they can print their work and take it home, without every having to wait for the paint to dry!  

How do you use art in your classroom?