Managing the Material Prep for Elementary Art Teachers

Hey there it's Katie Darvis with Managing the Meth and I'm a K-6 elementary art teacher.

In this video I'm going to bring you along and show you some of the magic and madness

that goes on when you're prepping art materials for an elementary arts class.

Today my kindergarten students are going to start on this mouse paint project. Mouse paint is a book

for elementary students about color mixing and they're going to mix the colors to make the mice

that you see there in the background. So here's what the prep for the lesson looks like. I've got

my magenta, turquoise, and yellow paints out. Those work the best for mixing for me. Mix a

dinosaur purple, a macaroni and cheese orange, and a slimy green. We're using these art craft

swaps. There's kind of like a q-tip for mixing so we can simply just throw those away at the end of

the lesson. And I have a plastic container with a lid and this is where I'm pre-pouring my paint.

I pour the paint into half of an egg carton so that each student can have their own opportunity

with mixing to fit the whole class in this bin. I've just put a little tray in there so that I

can have two layers of paint that is all set up and ready to go. I did pour this yesterday after

school but it will be good for about 24 hours set up like this in those paper cartons. I have a couple

different systems that I use for prepping and preparing the paint and they all revolve around

recycled materials. So at the beginning of the school year I send a note out to my families

that I'll be collecting things like Greek yogurt cups in egg cartons and they can just send them

in whenever they have some throughout the school year. I don't have students and staff come in and

interrupt me when I'm prepping and I'm teaching. I have them put them in a container out in the

hallway and then each afternoon I bring these in and then prep them as needed. So I would cut the

lids off of the egg cartons and then I sort them by type. So I collect the paper ones, the styrofoam

ones, and the plastic ones and I use each for different things in my room. For the older kids

I would use the plastic or styrofoam and I put them in a smaller container so they can just carry

this back to their table and then use the paints right out of the container. And using these

sterilite bins like this, the paint will last for several weeks. I would say any project that I'm

doing, even if my classes are all in a different space on a different day, this will still work

for that entire project and not dry out. Another system that I use is I will use like these big

under the bed storage containers and I will put a bunch of egg cartons all filled up and ready to go

inside of there for students to use as well. So they just take the egg carton then right to their

table to use. I wouldn't recommend these systems with the younger grades. Second grade can probably

handle the egg cartons but kindergarten first if you teach pre-k. I would just use something like

a yogurt cup so that they would be using one color at a time and that paintbrush would be staying in

that color. So I love the system of putting the lids on. It just helps the paint to last a lot

longer. And I'm putting different colors inside these Greek yogurt cups and then I would have a

paintbrush in there ready to go. If they want a new color, they're just switching yogurt containers

and I think that's easier for them to see what's going on and keep them organized so that they're

not mixing your colors. For erasers, I really just prep this at the beginning of the year. I love to

buy the white erasers that don't leave marks on the paper when they erase. And I recommend that

you cut them in half so there's less eraser to be destroyed. I think you're living on the edge

if you store them at your tables like in table baskets. I keep mine in my little art buffet here

and they're in ice cube trays. So at the end of class, my students know that if any of them are

missing or they're severely destroyed, it counts as a frown for our happy and sad board for the

class. So they really monitor each other. They're the ones that notice, oh my goodness, we're missing

five erasers and kind of call that out at the end of the class and look around and find them. The

white ones are the same color as the floor. So that's really the only downside to this system.

Many of these erasers we've had since the beginning of the year. A recent art teacher discovery are

these little white pencil caps. I think everyone can relate that the erasers on the pencils just

are not big enough for art classes. So what I did was get these little white eraser caps and I hot

glued them to my pencils. And I did a little bit of a test. I had some where I just placed it on

the pencil and put them in my pencil cups and others where I hot glued them. It's definitely

worth your time to hot glue them or Gorilla Glue them onto your pencil. And again, I don't recommend

storing your pencils at your tables. This spot here next to my erasers is sort of an extra pencil

spot for pencils that we might find laying around the room. But I store my pencils in Pennsylvania

and then we just pass those out as needed. And the eraser system is working really well so far.

I feel as though clay is the biggest mess that we have to manage. Where I store my extra pieces of

clay is inside of these like Dollar Tree dish pans. These are great for all sorts of things in

the art room. What I recently discovered though is instead of putting the clay right into these

containers, you can line your container with a plastic bag first. So I put it inside of the trash

bag. Then we're putting all the scraps of our extra clay. Then you can put wet paper towels or

spray this. And then you take another trash bag and you put it inside of there. Just makes the

cleanup at the end a little bit easier. Now if I'm preparing slabs, I do have a secret. My clay mats

are Dollar Tree cutting boards. These are now two for $1.25. I've had these for more than eight years.

In between uses, I will wash these down, throw them on the drying rack to dry, and then use them

again. What I do with these is I can prep these several days in advance. When I'm cutting slabs,

I'm using this multi-slab cutter. This is a tool that you need to have. I don't really have a link

for this, but a lot of the local clay companies will sell this. Just make sure you're searching

multi-slab cutter and lots of these little things will come up. It's only about $50.

It's definitely worth your investment because you're cutting all the slabs exactly at the same

size and you're cutting them very quickly at the same time. I will store these in the Sterilite

bins, like a larger one, and then put them directly on one of those cutting boards. These

are houses that we're making with Kindergarten. Then I can just stack up lots of them and just

fill this bin as I'm prepping with all of those. Then it's easy to just pass them out.

They already have then a mat to work off of. If I'm cutting clay for pinch pots or coil pots,

I'm just using the regular clay cutting tool, which just has two little wooden handles and

a little wire going across. I think about the shape that I'm going to cut. For pinch pots,

I'm just cutting little squares of clay. When I'm doing coils, students are going to need that long

coil shape. I will cut the clay into what I call fish sticks. It's long, skinny rectangles.

Then when they get the little fish stick, they squeeze it and then they start to roll. They're

able to move through the process faster and have a lot more success than having them start off

with a little ball or a little square of clay. When you're prepping clay, one thing that I

think you don't need to worry about at this elementary level is wedging the clay. I know

when I was taught this in college, this was a huge deal. We were worried about air bubbles.

I don't know. This doesn't seem to be an issue for me. I get the clay. It's already wedged. My

students use it. Even if my students are using the leftover scraps, I've never had trouble.

I've never once wedged the clay. I think anything to do with explosions has to do with drying time.

Now, if you're looking for some clay tips and tricks or how to use a kiln,

I've got separate videos about that. I have over 120 videos about art room management.

So make sure that you like this video and subscribe so you don't miss out on any of those.

One thing that I prep for my students before they come to art is name tag labels. So I have a label

in my computer that I print out for each class. It has each student's name, the seat number that

they sit at, their classroom teacher. And then I use this to label all of their artwork. So

once I get these organized, I'm printing out nine of them. I have enough for the whole quarter.

Each quarter, I'll review who's moved away, who's moved in, and I will make some adjustments. But

this helps me so much to keep organized because I can prep the artwork. When I take it off the

drying rack, I can put it in seat number order so I can pass these out in seconds. It is magical.

I also don't have any no-name papers because anybody that still has a name tag here hasn't

put their name on their work. If someone is absent, I'll just take a little marker. I'll

write an A and I'll save a paper or the materials that we're using that day for the absent students.

But I have it marked then that when I go to grade that artwork, I can see right there on their name

tag that they were absent. Another thing that I might mark on these is if they got teacher

assistance to complete the project or if they were assisted by another student to complete the work,

I'd want to note that just with a little code for myself so I know what to do with that artwork when

I'm grading it. Now, another thing that I discovered, I don't know why I resisted this

so long because I saw that classroom teachers did this. I started using these little laminated

pouches and what I did was I stuck the name tag labels inside there and then used an Expo marker

to mark off. I was taking photos of sixth graders, okay, like who still needs a photo? And I was able

to mark that off and simply just wipe this off and use it again. And then I got even smarter.

I use my seating charts as a little folder. Inside of the folder, this is where I would keep

all of their name tag labels for the whole quarter. I have a little log where I keep

track of behaviors, but the outside is my seating chart. So I stuck that into this little pouch and

this is just a dry erase pouch from the Dollar Tree. And then I could go around and grade students

and mark it down directly on the seating chart because I don't know about you. But last quarter,

I got to the end of the quarter and I was just so overwhelmed with how many things that I had

to grade. And I do think a better system is walking around, seeing the students in action,

talking with them and asking them questions about their artwork. Speaking of talking,

connecting with your students, when I'm passing out these name tag labels, often I will pass them

out myself. For upper grades, occasionally I will take these, clip them to a chair and then have

students come up and take an exit ticket, put their name on the exit ticket with the sticker,

and then go back to their seats to complete it. But I will go around and pass these out very often

because that way I am stopping and checking in with each student. I otherwise don't think I

would slow down enough to do this, but this is making me stop. It also is connecting their name

in my brain to that cute little face. So it's a great way to learn your students' names. My artwork

then is already prepped and ready for hallway displays and for art shows. So it's a great system

to keep yourself organized. I don't just use the labels for paintings and drawings,

but I use them for anything that we need to label in the classroom. When we're doing clay,

my fourth graders do a coil pot where they build it within these bowls. We of course remove this

before we fire it, but I will take a name tag label and have this already prepped. And on the bowls,

we can just pass these out when we start to do the clay project. After the clay dries, then I peel

off this paper bowl and I can see the student's name to etch it into the clay. My kindergartners

are currently making clay houses and it's easier for them to build on a little tray, especially for

the glazing part because I do glazing as centers. Students move around the room and carrying it on

a tray means that their clay is less likely to break. So I take name tag labels again, label

those before the students come in. So those are super easy to match up with their clay and to pass

out. My first graders made animal masks. I have this lesson over on Teachers Pay Teachers where I

taught them three-dimensional paper techniques, and then they used them on a simple mask form that I

hot glued to a piece of paper. Again, take a name tag, I stick it right on the back there, and then

everything is labeled. When we have pieces like for this mask, we had all these different little

paper techniques. The first day of this lesson was just an exploring centers day. So every single

table had a different paper technique at the table and they practiced making fringe, making a cone,

and they put it inside of a bag. Before they started on the project, we labeled a little

Ziploc bag for everyone with their name. I do this for clay projects and anything that can help me

be more organized so that I'm not losing student artwork and I'm not using my time to find missing

things or figure out where someone's is, were they absent. Everything is clearly marked and it just

makes my job easier to be a little bit extra on the organization. As art teachers, a lot of the

prep that we do is with paper. The first of which is making copies. Now, make sure that you're

setting aside enough time in your schedule to make all your copies. So you're not running to the copy

machine on Monday to make 25 copies of Mouthpaint. And oh my goodness, on Wednesday, I have first

grade again. I'm making 25 more copies of Mouthpaint. Setting aside enough time, you can copy for it the

entire grade level, make some extras because you never know, and copy for one extra class. So I have

four first grade classes. I would make enough copies for five first grade classes. That way,

I have one class of extra that I can file away in my filing cabinet. So when I come to this

Mouthpaint lesson next year, if I'm caught off guard and I want to start it one day and I don't

have time to make the copies, I have enough for one day to get me going. So this is a real time

saver. Something that really gives me a lot less stress, just knowing that that is filed away for

me. Should I decide on a whim? I'm doing Mouthpaint today. It is ready to roll. Now, when I'm making

copies of resources that I'm going to use over and over, I will laminate them. And I like to use

my personal laminator. It's one of my favorite little teacher things that I've bought for myself

because it comes with these little pouches. They're exactly the size of a sheet of paper.

It comes in smaller sizes or bigger sizes for construction paper too, but it's great for

handouts. You just slide that through your laminator and melts the pouch and you don't

have to do any cutting and your handouts are ready to go for your students. Of course, now that things

are laminated, it will literally last you your entire career. My favorite paper trick for prepping

is copying on construction paper. For construction paper, my kindergartners do a texture painting with

the story corduroy, and I copy this onto construction paper. Yes, 12 by 18 construction

paper fits in your copy machine. This is actually a freebie if you want this little template over on

my Teachers Pay Teachers. I do a similar project with the first graders. They each pick a different

winter animal and we paint a texture. So I take the animals and I copy different animals that they can

choose from onto the construction paper. When my older students are painting, we're studying the

different painting techniques. This is one that I sell in Teachers Pay Teachers. I copy it onto

construction paper and then students test out these painting techniques and try them out.

And then when we jump into a painting, they use this as a menu. Which of these techniques that

they learn do they want to use within the picture? I have them choose like five that they're going to

use in the real painting. At the end, for a reflection and exit ticket, they're identifying

which techniques did they use and where did they use them within their paintings. So that's an

excellent way to use construction paper. One of my all-time favorites is having this for weaving

looms. So I've made a little template on construction paper. It's just construction

paper folded in half and you can see that I've only drawn lines on half of it. I've numbered

this so students can go under, over, under, over and look at those numbers. And I've created a

stop line where the students are to stop cutting to create their loom. I will copy these onto

different colors of construction paper to make our looms really fun. And then what the students do

is they just cut, cut, cut, stop. Cut, cut, cut, stop. Cut, cut, cut, stop. Cut, cut, cut, stop.

Open this up and then they have a paper weaving loom. So the prep for me is that I do have to

copy these ahead of time and I do need to fold them for my students for them to be successful.

When it comes to prepping construction paper, I've learned to limit myself to certain sizes. So

I will pre-cut these sizes and then just have them ready to go at any time. So for squares,

I like to do 12 by 12. That's a great background size. I will have this ready in all the colors

so when I come up with a project and I need that, it is ready to go. Another size that I prep

is three by three. This could be houses windows. It could be origami. Works for both and it's ready

to roll. For any scraps that I have or I will prep this at like a four by six inch size.

I will put them in these file folding bins and there are folders in here. I laminated a little

construction paper piece on there so they can see what color goes where. But this would be filled

and ready to go at all times. So if I'm excited to do a collage project tomorrow, it is ready to

roll. Another size that I will do is I will cut the paper in half and then I will have this ready

to go in like these magazine holders. I think this is from Ikea and then it's simply just in

a paper copy box. So that could be used for my animal mask project or any other projects where

I need that same size of paper. Another tip with this is if you're going to be doing self-portraits

for collages, which I often do, my students love patterned paper. So I go to Michaels,

definitely with a coupon. Use your tutor discount. Look in the clearance section. But I look for

patterned paper and then I cut it up really small, like four by six, and I'll put it all in a little

bin already prepped and ready so that if we're doing collages, I can just easily pull this out

for my students to use. This school year, I have a lot of back to back classes. And one of the ways

that I am surviving is I am covering my tables. And what I found is, is this takes a lot of time.

So I wipe off my tables, I let them dry, and then I put the paper on. And what I've done is I take

a little bit of time and I prep the paper ahead of time. So I pre-cut it, I count out how many I need,

and then I put a little bit of painter's tape on it. So I have a bunch of packs like these

sitting in the corner of my room, just ready to go. Now, because of the back to back to back

situation, there are times when I double cover the table. So I put this paper underneath and I tape

it down. And I will then put this plastic tablecloth, it's like a cut to size plastic tablecloth

that we found from Amazon. It works like saran wrap. There's a little cutter inside of there.

So you just simply measure out how much you need, and this slices across and cuts the size that you

would need. And then I would tape this down on top of the paper. I've taught my students in all my

upper grades on how to gently remove the tape and make a burrito, keeping all the toppings,

the paints and the scraps and things like that inside, and then disposing of this in the trash.

So it's a very fast way for us to clean up. And it's a good way for me to survive those back to

back classes. If you enjoyed this video, seeing a little bit of behind the scenes, art teacher prep,

and you'd like to see more, make sure that you like this video. An area that I didn't cover that

I'd love to in future videos is doing how do I prep the yarn, the weaving, and the sewing projects.

So if you'd like to see that, make sure you hit that like button and I'll see you in my next video.