Elementary Art Education Articles for Teachers

Picture this: You're walking past a classroom as musical notes float through the air, and you catch a glimpse of class members happily singing; captivated not only by the music, but the utter joy for the learning process. Music is a powerful medium for conveying and basking in varying shades of e...

With so many standards to teach, high-stakes testing, and pressure to make sure that there is “no child left behind,” it’s no wonder that the arts get lost in the midst of the busy school day. Here are some ideas to help bring art back into your classroom. Combining Art and Math In kindergarten...

In my teaching experience, I've found that children come from a variety of backgrounds. Some have traditional families, others non traditional, and still others might have parents who are divorced. Within the group of divorced parents, I have encountered ones who did not get along with each oth...

In many schools there are mainstream classrooms and a number of special education classrooms. These special education classrooms include rooms for students with learning disabilities, speech issues, mental disabilities, and emotional disabilities. While some students with disabilities may look an...

Valentine’s Day is a day filled with friendship and fun. Students love to bring in Valentine’s for their friends and teachers, eat sweets, and participate in art projects. There are many ways to celebrate Valentine's Day, but one of the best is with art projects. Here are some ideas for activitie...

Having a Secret Santa gift exchange in the classroom is a fun way to celebrate the season. Students love trying to guess the name of their "secret santa." Here's how it works. Students are given the name of a student in the class to give a gift to, but everyone has to keep their recipient a secre...

During the holiday season, people not only celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah, but participate in a celebration called Kwanzaa. It is a holiday that is celebrated by African Americans, and focuses on the first harvest of crops. If you have a student who celebrates Kwanzaa, it is especially import...

As teachers, we usually think of creative and fun activities to do during the holidays, mostly involving Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa. However, once in a while, you will have a student in your class that does not celebrate the holidays, or may celebrate a holiday you don't normally cover in cl...

Even though Hanukkah is a holiday that people celebrate around the world, many students may not be familiar with its history. During the time leading up to the holidays, teachers can provide students with activities related to Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and any other celebrations they would li...

Whether you are a person who likes to schedule their time carefully, or someone who goes with the flow, we all have to be aware of the time. Getting to work, school, athletic practice, or bed on time is a necessity. That is why it is important for students to learn at an early age how to tell tim...

While the day before a holiday break can be fun and exciting, it can also be nerve wracking for teachers. On these days students are often focused on the upcoming vacation, not on school. Here are some ways to make the day before a break fun and structured at the same time. There are easy ways t...

The one subject students know more about than any other is themselves. They know their favorite foods, music, activities, and clothing. They know their own family and their friends. Kids are the experts on the subject of “me”, which is why doing autobiographical projects creates a level playing f...

Besides being fun to make and wear, beads also offer connections to history and culture. Making beads is an old craft. Beads and pendants created by ancient cultures give us a glimpse of the belief systems and materials available in different times and places. Beads have been used in monetary sys...

Throughout history, artists have been captivated by the flower as the subject of their artwork. Georgia O’Keefe, who painted flowers as her specialty, is quoted as saying, “If I could paint the flower exactly as I see it, no one would see what I see because I would paint it small like the flower ...

There truly is no match for the feeling of pressing your fingers into a wet slab of clay. The “squishiness” kids notice when clay is wet, make it an unmatchable tactile experience.  Plus this wonderful quality makes clay a very expressive medium that is also very forgiving. Part of the joy of wo...

A blank sheet of slick paper. A spoonful of yellow finger paint. Can you feel the excitement? If you haven’t finger painted since you were a child, it’s time to get your hands in the paint to remind you of the joy of an unplanned art experience. One of the pleasures of finger painting is the sing...

Finding art supplies in a grocery store is an adventure in creativity. One aisle that can provide inexpensive, three-dimensional supplies is the pasta aisle. While most of the dried pasta found there is mass-produced by machine, it is important to remember that pasta was at one time made only by ...

A tessellation is created when a shape (or polygon) is repeated over and over on a surface (or plane) with no empty areas or overlaps in the arrangement. Squares, triangles, rectangles, and hexagons can be repeated like tiles on a surface to create a tessellation. These shapes can also be changed...

Symmetry is defined as the quality of being made up of identical parts facing each other on opposite sides of an axis. But a child’s understanding of symmetry comes more from personal experience than by hearing and repeating a definition. Symmetry is present in just about every environment ...

A collage is a picture or design created by adhering flat elements to a flat surface. The word “collage” comes from the French word coller, meaning literally “to glue”. And glue is one of the most important elements in collage art. Other materials can include almost anything that can be glued or ...

Fabric is something many students take for granted. As they choose which pair of jeans to put on each day, few will think about what went into weaving the denim fabric of the pants. Weaving is the process of creating cloth by crossing two fibers under and over each other. Most often done on looms...

A landscape is all of the visual features of an area of land. Landscapes are all around children. They pass landscapes on their school buses, in their family cars, and on trains going in and out of the city. Exploring the topic of landscape can help students become more aware of the world zooming...

Photography is the art of taking still or moving pictures. At one time, possessing a photograph was a treasure, possessing a camera rarer still. Today children have seen hundreds (perhaps thousands) of photos of themselves and their families, and may even have their own digital cameras. Takin...

Project-based learning offers students the opportunity to work cooperatively on authentic tasks with real-world relevance.  While projects are curriculum-based, students lead their own inquiry into topics. Because performance is assessed, project-based learning accommodates a variety of learnin...

For many new kindergarten students the instruction “Please get in line!” is new and unfamiliar. While forming lines is a part of everyday life for the rest of the population, in kindergarten forming and staying in lines while traveling about the school is a yearlong skill to improve on. In ar...

Even if you haven't used art portfolios in the past, there are easy ways to get started. Many teachers use large folders, folded pieces of tag board, or oversized envelopes to store student artwork. Other ideas include asking local pizza parlors to donate clean, unused pizza boxes or putting recy...