Inspiration from World Wide Web

I’ve been web surfing to come up with new ideas for this next year. I discovered new websites and visited old favorites.

I enjoy checking the websites for two of my favorite art education magazines:
School Arts (http://www.davisart.com/Portal/SchoolArts/SADefault.aspx)
along with Arts and Activities (http://www.artsandactivities.com/).
On their websites, they offer a selection of their published lesson plans as downloadable PDF’s.

I love this site for an introduction to my lesson on mudcloth printmaking, especially since I can use my ActivBoard to have the kids design their cloth: http://www.mnh.si.edu/africanvoices/mudcloth/index_flash.html

Everything you ever wanted to know about Eric Carle and his art:
http://www.eric-carle.com/home.html

NAEA has a good site for art professionals to share ideas at naeaelementarydivision.ning.com

Also check out your state’s Art Education Association website (or any other state) – some post lesson plans or recommend websites to help with lesson plans.

Of course be sure to google your favorite art suppliers since many post lesson plans as well: crayola.com, prismacolor.com, etc.

My students enjoy visiting the interactive site
www.artsconnected.org/toolkit/explore.cfm to learn about art and I often use the activities along with my ActivBoard.

Many of the great art museums have wonderful sites to explore and learn from. Here are a few:
MOMA: http://www.moma.org/learn/activities/index.
The Art Institute of Chicago: http://www.artic.edu/aic/education/onlinelearning/index.html.
The Getty” http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/. Smithsonian: http://www.si.edu/education/.

Interested in incorporating more rubrics into your lessons? Check out: http://www.tools2learn.ca/rubric/rubric.html

Please share any sites that you rely on for inspiration!

Special Needs list

Starting to update all my forms before the big back to school rush. Today I’m working on my Special Needs lists.

These are checklists for the classroom teachers that help me identify any special needs my students may have that I am unaware of.

We have a diverse school population, ranging from resource kids (those identified as learning disabled) to gifted, monolingual Spanish-speaking students to those who speak fluently in both English & Spanish, and those with medical disabilities.

I created the form using Excel and have check off columns for the following designations: Resource, Speech, Gifted-Language Arts, Gifted-Math & Non-Verbal, Non-Reader, Spanish/Monolingual, Fluent Spanish/English and Medical Needs. There is also a large column for teacher comments.

I copy & paste the student class list on the form and give it to the classroom teacher the first day of class, asking that they return the form by the next class. With luck, I get most of the forms back in the first month.

I use this info in combination w/my first day assessments to help with seating charts. In any table group of 4, I don’t like to have more than 1 special needs student – this includes behavior or learning disability.

The only disadvantage to this system is the highly transitory nature of our school population. Probably 25% of our students enrolled in August will not be here in May. That’s when it pays to have good communication with your classroom teachers.

When a new student shows up, I take a few minutes at the beginning of class or end of class to pump the teacher for info. If the student has been at school for a few days, the classroom teacher may have some insight to behavior and learning abilities. If I’m lucky, the student is an in-district transfer (we have 23 schools in our K-8 district) and I can always touch base w/my colleague who was the former teacher for info. I always take the time to share my observations as well because we all know that our students can excel in our rooms even if they struggle elsewhere.

Well this was a nice diversion but I have to get back to those forms…