Curriculum

MISSION:

My goal as an art educator is to provide experiences in art 

which prepare students for a place on the 21st century, global stage.

My units are designed to promote creative and innovative thinking

while incorporating integrative ideas from the regular classroom 

alongside exposure to art history and world cultures.

Students participate in open-ended project based activities 

which allow them to experiment with different art materials 

and experience different art techniques.

In an effort to promote inquiry, 

student grades are based on

 participation rather than outcome.

Students do not receive a numeric grade.

GRADING: 

M: Meets the Standard

P: Progressing toward the Standard.

BEHAVIOR

Below, you will see the Art Procedures used in my class.  These were designed to ensure a safe and productive learning and work environment for all students.  They are as follows:

Be Respectful- treat others how you wish to be treated.  This includes students not talking during direct instruction and raising hands to ask or answer a question.

Be Responsible- students must take care and clean up art supplies and projects and bring art folder to class (grades 1-5).

Work Hard- students come to art once a week and in an effort to maximize this creative time students are not allowed to, "sit around and do nothing!"  I always have quality enrichment activities for students to work on if they have finished the day's lesson or art project.

Stay Positive- I remind students that they are in my class to learn and grow.  We try out new processes and techniques while practicing art skills.  I also like students to understand that within the limited amount of time they have in my class they may not always achieve what they deem to be an absolute success and that creative problem solving more often involves additional attempts in order to obtain satisfaction.  I assure students that working to their potential in class and meeting the general criteria for projects does equal success in my classroom.  I encourage students to practice ideas outside of class, especially skill practice to work toward satisfaction.

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Rewards:  

I like to use positive reinforcement in my class.  Our projects and Early Finisher Center activities are rewards.  The harder students work, the more exciting (and messy), projects become!  

Consequences:

Generally, I have very few behavior issues as students are excited to work hard in my classroom.  However, if a student is misbehaving I take the following steps*:

1.Non-verbal or verbal cue to student to stop the misbehavior

2. Verbal warning to stop the misbehavior

3.  Isolated work area (student is allowed to work on regular art assignment)

4.  Student is in isolation while writing explanation of misbehavior.  This explanation will be given to classroom teacher and must be signed by parents or guardian then returned to me in order for student to return to regular art instruction.

5.  If steps 1-4 have still not corrected misbehavior then student will be isolated with alternative assignment and a phone call or email is sent to parent or guardian.  Once student displays appropriate behavior he/she may return to general classroom seating and work on regular art assignments.

6.  Further misbehavior will result in the student's referral to administrator.

*Extreme circumstances will result in immediate referral to administrator and therefore necessitate bypassing steps 1-5.