Art Teacher Lesson Plan Tip

During a new lesson, I start typing up the steps we go through each day. I make this my lesson plan in Word format on the computer (you can hand write too). I make notes on the day ***Reminder: Tell students they need to "blah blah blah," with things I notice that need to be tweaked.

For example:
Day 1: Show power point presentation of _________. Hand out and have students begin practice worksheets of __________. *** Remind students to use a ruler

I continue this each day until the new lesson is complete. I save the electronic file and print out two copies. One copy I rubber cement onto the back of my example artwork I created. Then I send it to be laminated. This way it can never be separated from my example. I put the other copy in the file with the lesson and all of the parts, handouts, worksheets, examples etc. So I have one copy of the day to day lesson on an example and one in the file. I've attached a copy of the Zentangle lesson write up.

I find this is a great tool for continuing a lesson if I'm sick and need a sub. :)

If you do anything similar to this, please share what you do! I'm always interested in ways I can tweak what I'm doing! 

Laminated Example Front

Laminated Example Artwork Back with Lesson Attached

Close up of Word Document Write Up

Zentangles with 6th Graders

Inspired by pinterest...

I took photos of the children a few days before starting the lesson. Use a white background when taking the profile photo. Use photo shop to create the silhouette or other photo editing software. I had the silhouettes printed on large 11x17 paper at my office. The day we started the lesson we talked about the elements of art, line, shape, form, value, space and some principles such as pattern and rhythm with the use of a power point. To finish the class, I had students trace them on the light table on 12x18 paper. Students also practiced creating patterns based on some examples on a worksheet I created for practicing the zentangle designs.

I assessed the students designs and discussed some more options, ideas and things to stay away from on day two. I also equipped each table with some step by step zentangle pages I got from various sources on the internet including pinterest. These helped a lot! Students outlined their pencil silhouette with black sharpie. We then started dividing the background into large sweeping sections. Students then began creating Zentangles in the sections using ultra fine point sharpies and regular sharpies to fill in areas with black. After a few days of working, we decided the final step would be to fill in the silhouettes with black. I did experiment with adding watercolor in a wash and tie-dyed fashion to the background. That looked cool too. We didn't do that to our final project due to time needs for our short time together.


The final results were great! I made suggestions for students to add details to areas, add more contrast by adding blacked out areas and finally to spend a little time sharpening and cleaning up various lines. The turned out GREAT!