Mr. Mallory's Theory of Everything

Truly, this could probably go on forever. Just the "Utility" bubble alone could branch off indefinitely. In fact, that may be a good lesson, to have kids brainstorm as many uses for art as possible (and thereby also art-related vocations).

What kind of shape are you in?

Want to learn what Mr. Mallory tried to teach Boyer Valley's elementary teachers? Click the link below:

Shape Slide Show

Escher in the Classroom

Escher in the Classroom
Here's a great lesson on making tesselations. I think it would probably work for at least 5th grade, maybe even 4th. You can go all-out and make them with sponges or foam-core so that kids can experience them as puzzle pieces.

Yearbook; Elements of Design » graphic:DESIGN:basics

I was looking for things to help Yearbook students with graphic design and layouts when I stumbled on this site that I think could be useful to Yearbook staffers, Web Design students, and probably elementary teachers too, and really anybody who's interested in learning more about art or design!

If you're really into graphic design, the author of this site is a designer herself and textbook author who offers graphic design basics, competitions, news, interviews, book reviews, and more.

Elements of Design » graphic:DESIGN:basics

Elements of Design

These are the ingredients to any design project, whether it’s a way to set up your garden to a map that shows people who to go from here to the moon. The ingredients, like those within a cake, often interact with each other to the point that the cake wouldn’t exist if one of these elements were missing.

Principles of Design

These are the tools that blend the ingredients for any design project. You can use all the design elements, but if you don’t blend them with rhythm, balance, contrast, etc., then you don’t have a cake.

Basic Art & Drawing: Lessons

COOL School; Online Drawing Lessons

This is an awesome site I found from the Oregon school system. If you want to learn about the elements of design or about drawing, this is a quick, easy fun website with simple, "independent-study" exercises you can do on your own.

Audience

Middle School to Adult

Goals

• Analyze art work using elements and principles.
• Opportunity to meet/exceed Art CIM standards.
• Expose students to a variety of drawing techniques and styles.
• Recognize, know meaning, and demonstrate art principles and elements in student's own art work.
• Students will critique their own art work and that of others, using elements and principles.
• Students will recognize and demonstrate the following: contour line, stippling, shading, crosshatching, gridding, 1-point and 2-point perspective, portraits, and proportions.

Teachers; Art basics for non-art teachers

Here is the PowerPoint Show for the presentation I made today for the Boyer Valley Elementary Teachers in Dow City

http://boyer-valley.k12.ia.us/artbasics.pps

And here is a PDF of the National Standards for Art
http://boyer-valley.k12.ia.us/artstandards.pdf