I was looking for a free alternative to Photoshop timeline for creating animated .gifs and happened upon a great website called Brush Ninja Animation Maker. I always get a little nervous trying a new web-based program with several classes, but I have to say, I was impressed with what my Graphic Design and Digital art students were able to create.

I love this assignment for my Art 2 students. It gives students a chance to explore drawing on a different surface than just white drawing paper. It also allows them to try drawing with a medium of their choice: drawing pencil, ink/marker, or charcoal. They must choose their subject matter based off of a word on their dictionary page. They could write the word alongside the drawing if they desired.
​Our library had several old dictionaries they were trying to get rid of. Since they're outdated, I didn't feel too guilty cutting them out with an x-acto knife. I can cut several pages at once and then I keep all the cut pages in a folder for students to look through. It's a quick drawing project but one that my students love year and year.

Check out these amazing mandala coloring pages in my Teachers pay Teachers store!
This is a set of 25 unique mandalas you won't find anywhere else. Perfect for teaching about shape, radial symmetry, coloring techniques, geometry, and more! I have personally found these mandala coloring pages to be great for students needing a bit of stress relief. There is something very therapeutic about coloring in the different shapes. My classroom gets very quiet when all of my students are working on these! These pages would work with colored pencils or markers. I will always recommend Prismacolor colored pencils, but any kind will work!

Purchase the whole set for only $3.50 in my store.

Download the free mandala coloring sheet as a preview:

Then I signed it using my favorite uniball gel pen in white and called it done!

What do you think of this project for teaching watercolor techniques? Leave a comment below!

Next, I mixed up all of my circles to create more variety and then arranged them on my sheet of 11"x14" black tagboard BEFORE gluing them down. I used UHU glue stick to glue my pieces down once I was satisfied.

​You may download the PDF below to see how I let students look through the different art movements related to graphic design along with key characteristics and examples.

I created the above graphic to help my art and graphic design students understand color psychology. We talk about how colors can have both positive and negative associations and that meanings will vary across cultures and age groups. Feel free to use the above resource as a guide in teaching your students about meanings and feelings behind colors. Here are also some fun color facts!

#1 Blue is identified as the worlds most favorite color.
#2 The colors yellow and red can have an excitable effect on people and often can make people eat faster or eat more than they normally would.
#3 The color wheel was invented by Sir Isaac Newton.
#4 Red is understood to be the first color that a new baby can see. As their color vision develops, the number of colors they are able to see continues to grow until they see the full spectrum of colors by the age of about five months.
#5 Pink has a sedative effect on people. It's for this reason that many sports teams paint the visiting team's locker room pink. (Anything to get an advantage over the competition!)
#6 If you a drive a white car, you are less likely to get into a car crash. If you drive a black car, you are MORE likely to get into a car crash.
#7 Mosquitos are attracted to dark colors and especially the color blue. It is in your best interest to wear lighter colors in other hues to ward off mosquitos if you're in a crowd!
#8 The color "orange" in English used to be "geoluhread" which means "yellow-red". While as far back as the 13th century, the citrus fruit was called "orange." It wasn't until the 16th century that Europeans adopted the same word for both the fruit and the color.

Don't let the morbid name scare you. It started as a Surrealist game in the 1920s and is similar to a Victorian-era parlor game called Consequences. Exquisite corpse is a great get-to-know-you activity for middle and high school students. It lets kids practice drawing skills too-- even if they feel like they aren't good at art. This one even gets my high school kids laughing like crazy.

Skills & Key concepts: Drawing, collaboration, imagination, character design, anatomy.
Time Required: About 10-15 minutes.

I have used this in graphic design classes when introducing our photography unit, but you could do this in any class.

How to Play:
After showing the short video below, I give students 10 minutes to pair up and find as many "faces" as they can made of inanimate objects. I tell them they may have to rotate their camera, zoom in, or crop areas to get the best effect. I let students roam the classroom, go outside if the weather is nice, and even the hallways, cafeteria, and gym if allowed. Students record their finds with a smartphone, classroom camera, or iPad. Students can upload photos to a google classroom post. After time is up, the team with the most (or funniest) pareidolia photos wins!
​
​Check out this article for more info:
https://futurism.com/pareidolia-why-we-see-what-isnt-there

Have I told you how much I love sculpey? It doesn't dry out in the air, I can leave it in a box for ages, far more forgiving than genuine clay, and it's awesome for kids who just need to fidget!

How to Play:
Sculpey Pictionary is fairly easy to understand. I give each group of kids a 2-minute timer (like the ones to the right) and a ball of Sculpey about the size of a small apple. I cut up strips of paper with different words and put them in a bucket for each group of kids. Students take turns drawing a word and they have to sculpt it using the Sculpey in under two minutes. If one of their group members guesses correctly, the sculptor (and the student that guessed it right) gets a point! We play several rounds and then the player with the most points from each group wins (usually some candy or pencils from my "prize" box).

Skills & Key concepts: Sculpting, clay, 3-D design, vocabulary
​
Time Required: I typically do this for a full 50 minute class hour but you could probably do it in 20-30 minutes with smaller groups.

Super simple. Super fun. All you need are some straws, heavier paper, India ink, newspapers, possibly markers, and some brushes/calligraphy pens.

How to Play:
1. Give students a few drops of India ink (or even watered down paint) on a thicker paper such as mixed media, watercolor, or tagboard paper. 90# or more works best. Put newspaper or scrap paper underneath to catch any ink drips.
2. Next, give students a plastic straw. I cut the straw in half to save on over-using the plastic. You could also use paper straws instead!
3. Now let students blow the drops of ink all over their paper by blowing through the straw. Students are not allowed to use their hands or brushes-- only their straw! I give students about 5 minutes to do this.
4. When students are done, instruct them to think about what they could make out of these ink blowings. OR to make it more challenging, I pair students up randomly to exchange their papers. Then they have to think about what they could make out of someone else's ink blowing.
5. Students then proceed to use India ink with brushes, markers and/or calligraphy pens to turn their ink blowing into something more recognizable or interesting. I often allow abstract patterns and shapes too.
​6. When all students are done, we hang them up in the hallway for a quick gallery walk/critique.

This is a great way for kids to take a brain break and develop some creativity!

This game is online based, but it's kind of addicting so I had to include it.
This game was created by Tate and is available along with other art-related games on their website.
Visit here: https://www.tate.org.uk/kids/games-quizzes/street-art to check it out! I like that they provide examples of work that kids around the world have created on their website. You can see some examples to the right!

Skills & Key concepts: Street art, digital art, expressionism, computer literacy

Time Required: This ranges from a 5-minute activity to even longer for more complex works.

Unfortunately I have not found the original source for this game since there are so many versions out there!

However, this game is super fun and not difficult to do with a variety of ages and abilities. I have created a blank PDF table (download it at the left or use the link below!) with the dice and different facial features. I have students draw ideas for head shape, left eye shape, eyebrows, etc. They can also write the ideas in words too.

Next, we roll the dice! I like the big foam dice found at the Dollar Tree in packs of two. They are quiet! However, you can also use an online-based dice roller such as https://freeonlinedice.com/. 

There are lots of teachers out there who have created different versions of these games. A quick search on Teachers Pay Teachers will reveal many options! However, I find that letting kids choose the "parts" makes it even more fun! You could even let kids work together to create all of the parts and collaborate. Feel free to download the dice drawing template I created below. It is free!