Saturday, July 30, 2011

Gearing Up for Next Year! IDEA: Art Club

I have so many ideas floating around!! A lot of great info from taking The Art of Education's Assessment in Art Education with Jessica Balsley which I highly recommend!
I would like to fish for some ideas from the blogging world. I have requested that in my schedule for next year I am free when the upper level students have lunch/recess so I can offer an Art Club.

Have you done one before?
Are you doing an Art Club?
How often do you meet?
Do students have to apply or are they invited?
What kinds of projects do you do?
Do you have a post about it?

Would love to hear everyone's ideas on what has worked!

4 comments (+add yours?)

Mrs E (in Texas) said...

I do art club for my 5th and 6th graders. I limit my space, so they must apply to become a member. One of my goals is to keep it small. I only have 18 in each club. We do visual journaling. Its a great way to try a broad variety of mixed media and see how it works together. I find that because they have been experimental with the journaling it give great freedom to their classroom art, and I hope any art that happens as they continue on their journey.

Snippety Gibbet said...

I've done art club for about five years. It meets on Monday afternoons, when our school has an early dismissal. Fourth and fifth graders may sign up. There have always been so many kids who wanted to participate that we have had to split it into a fall group and a spring group. Though a full cadre always signs up, there are usually a core group of ten kids who actually show up consistantly. I like to keep the groups to 16. Though the club is for them, I try to not overwhelm myself by taking on so much that I will be grouchy about the whole thing.

Phyl said...

We have what's called crEATe, or art at lunch for 4th, 5th and 6th graders. Each grade level has 2 days out of 6 (we're on a 6-day cycle) that they can sign up to come at lunchtime (actually for study hall time for 6th graders). I have 20 sign-up slots, and if you are shut out, you can sign up first for the next day. The kids work on current projects, help with taking down bulletin boards and sorting artwork, cleaning jobs, free choice drawing, or special mini-projects, and of course EAT! After a while, a core group of kids generally comes all the time so it works out well. They also learn that misbehavior will make them not eligible, so it is a good motivation for good behavior.

Kathleen O'Malley said...

Hi Tisha,
I approached it a little different... I became one of the teachers running Student Council at two of my schools. I was able to organize The Empty Bowl Project one year and Houses for Haiti pins for a couple of years. This year I plan on introducing Fans for Japan and see if Student Council students would like to take that project on. I love the community service component of these projects, it's good for the students and I feel like I'm making a little bit of a difference too.

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