Warm Ups- Using Art Vocabulary

I've written earlier about my oral Warm Ups for my art class. Well, today I will tell you about my written Warm Ups.

Most of my Warm Ups are based on the Principles and Elements of Design, which are all posted on my word wall in the back of my room.

I write which Element or Principle I want the students to describe or analyse on the board next to the projected art work. The art work can be any painting or sculpture visual that you have.

The students then fill in the grid corresponding to what I am looking for.  This year I will have the students do one Element/Principle a day, collect the grid, store them in their folders and hand them back the next day. We'll go over the answers on Friday, I'll collect them and give them a weekly grade.  

I am trying to save paper. Last year, I did the Warm Ups daily with the students got a new grid every day.

It took a lot of paper!

How do you do Warm Ups in your art room? Do you have a Warm Up that works for you?

Word Wall- Designed to Learn

My word wall is the center of  learning in my class. You can’t miss it. It fills a whole wall with our vocabulary- the Principles and Elements of Design. 

Not only does is have our design vocabulary, it has visuals to go along with the vocabulary. The students can see how artists have used those concepts in a piece of art.

Everything we do in class revolves around it- the warm ups, the critiques, and the project objectives all somehow involve using these vocabulary words.

Do you have a word wall in your art room? How do your students use it? Let me know!

 

Communicating with Students

I just came back from a convention in Orlando, Florida. The Keynote Speaker was Joel Manby, President and CEO of Herschend Family Entertainment. He recently wrote a book called Love Works: Seven Timeless Principles for Effective Leaders.  The book explains his unique approach to leadership, in which he uses 7 principles for 'leading with love'. Because he leads his business by these principles his organization is effective and produces an atmosphere that is conducive of long term success- for him, his business and the people he leads.

I thought his ideas had a lot I could take away and apply in my art room. As teachers, we are the leader in our class room and our goal is to equip our students to achieve long term success. So anything that will help me to be more effective and produces long term success has a thumbs up from me.

I'm not going to go into the 7 principles in this post- too much information for this little blog. And I've given you some links above to find out more about him and his book. But, one thing he mentioned that really struck me was how he 'leads with love' when communicating (the good and the bad) with his staff.

He has a three pronged approach-

-Praise in Public

-Admonish in Private

-Always Maintain the Dignity of All When Communicating

I think this is a simple, but great take away (one of many) from listening to him speak. I'll keep his 3 pronged approach in mind whenever I'm communicating and dealing with my students.

What about you- what do you think of this 3 pronged approach to communicating? Would this work in your art room?