Worthwhile Links

I've been scrolling the internet for ideas, and have come accross a few new sites, and some that I always return to visit.
Here is a list of great resources with postings by other art teachers out there:
1. My number one reccommended site is The Incredible Art Department. It is categorized very well with loads of lesson plans listed in age groups, mediums, artist, and more.

2. A site that has fantastic usable ideas over and over again is Art Projects for Kids, by Kathy Barbro. I have gone back to this site many times for elementary school art projects, and projects that work for my high school students with modified and special needs. I really appreciate how so much of the art for children here is centred around an artist's work, and that is the jumping off point for students.

3. I came across Art-rageous. It is a site with a lot of great ideas for high school art projects. I will definately be using some of them. The main layout could be more user-friendly, but there are really good photo examples of student work.

Plasticine Trees

My special needs students created these plasterceine versions of trees. It was a great medium for them to work with that allowed them a different kind of control than painting or colouring. They worked on 1/8 inch plywood or masonite sheets. They did need some help first having a tree sketched out as a starting point, and then filled in their colours with the plasterceine clay. For my students with developmental delays and limited dexterity this was a really good project. Most spent a little over an hour working on it, and a few other students needed more time than that.

This would work well for an elementary art class, or junoir high. It could also be adapted with more requirements or themes for a high school class. There are various illustrators out there who use this medium, which could be worked into a lesson to show real-world connections. Here is a great site for illustrator Barbara Reid who illustrates children's book mainly using the relief plasterceine method, and a sample of her work below: