Sarah Mostow was hired to provide professional development to a group of 10 elementary art teachers who worked at a charter school network in New York City. Searching for what she could offer the charter school teachers, who possessed diverse backgrounds and teaching styles, she wanted to find a structure they could adapt. She decided to distill…

Practical Life holds profound significance within the Montessori philosophy, captivating educators and students alike. Here, Montessori beautifully connects these concepts of dignity and independence to the skills children learn in their Montessori classroom. The author has a particular interest in fiber arts and crafts, and in this article, the…

The purpose of this article is to explore integrating nontraditional classroom art materials and allowing students to make art for nonart spaces. Art programs must stimulate creativity, innovation, and imagination; provide tools the students can use; identify a context the students can experiment within (Chang, 2015; Gude, 2010); and offer the…

In this study, a practicing elementary art teacher enacts the multiple imaginations rooted in a/r/tography while examining the complex experiences of the teacher engaged in new curricular work. A/r/tography is framed as a type of phenomenology of practice--a living and in-process inquiry--which accepts the artist/researcher/teacher as points of…

In the current climate of state-mandated education standards and assessment that prioritize math and language arts in U.S. schools, drawing, an accessible and/or pleasurable endeavor for a wide variety of children, is undervalued. Although research in art education over the past four decades has shown children's drawing and drawings to be rich…

This article concerns how teaching artists, associated with the Swedish Royal Opera, provided aesthetic opportunities to students during a three-year school project. One intervention is scrutinized in which the storybook of Red Riding Hood was used as a starting point for further aesthetic learning, culminating in a shadow theatre performance.…

With its ambient, interesting and dynamic use of materials, alternative views of materials and objects, with its playfulness and affecting different senses contemporary fine art can be very interesting for art-educational work. Due to its complexity, however, it suffers from misunderstanding, retreat, and last but not least also fears both among…

In this study, we address the research question: "How might child-created billboards about HIV and AIDS help facilitate more open discussions between parents and children?" The premise of our study is that there may be considerable potential for using multimodal forms of representation in makerspaces with young children to create more…

The primary purpose of this paper is to identify the level of interest and knowledge about fine art materials (in selected works of art) that can influence pre-service primary school, chemistry, and fine art teachers' implementation of this content into their teaching. This knowledge can help them be aware of how a specific fine art material can…

It's easy to see the connections between science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) in daily life, but they may not be so obvious in the classroom. This month's lessons allow students to explore the components of STEAM through a favorite art supply, the crayon, and a beloved American tradition, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day…

Painting on silk has a magic all its own. Versions of painting on silk can be found throughout the world from Japan and Europe to the United States. Themes for the paintings can be most any type of design or imagery. Applying the liquid dyes is exciting, as the vivid liquid colors flow and blend into the fabric. The process captures students'…

There is a lot of creative energy between students and their art materials. In this lesson, the author discusses materials an artist may use to create a work of art--paint, a paintbrush, a palette, crayons, markers, pastels, and so on. Each student sketched a picture of themselves holding some tools that can be used in art. The objectives of this…

In this article, the author describes an art project--a school-wide sticky-note show. The show was inspired by Giant Robot's annual Post-It Show in Los Angeles. The gallery invites hundreds of artists to doodle, draw, paint, and collage onto sticky notes. The individual sticky notes can be silly, ambitious, conceptual, or beautiful, but the…

Kids love to build robots, letting their imaginations run wild with thoughts of what they might look like and what they could be programmed to do. Yet when students use cereal boxes and found objects to make robots, often the projects look too similar and tend to fall apart. This alternative allows students to "build" robots in a different way,…

Nature is all around, and can be the inspiration for some excellent creations in the classroom. How can a teacher bring these rich natural elements into the art class? As the author was exploring a hiking trail, he came across a large piece of bark from an old oak tree. A strong wind began to blow through the trees, the leaves began to rustle and…