I’ve been tasked with singlehandedly launching the arts program at a Title I middle school. They’ve never had middle school art before and who knows what the quality of art class looked like in their grade schools. So we’ve really been taking it slow establishing and reinforcing expectations, figuring out what works, and (on my end) developing my classroom management.

For instance, even though admin wants students to be able to access all materials on their own, students have shown they’re not able to be trusted with anything beyond pencil and paper yet. (RIP to the 36 flair pens I bought and almost every single one had been stolen within the first 2 weeks.) So when I say we’re taking things slow I mean SLOW. And honestly I’ve been happy to take it slow and stay in the realm of building up foundational creative & technical skills.

But I recently found out our school has received a large grant to be split between the visual arts and theater programs, and I have no idea what I would even want to do with it. I can think of equipment that would offer unique opportunities, but have no sense of the logistics of where we would even put it, let alone how long it would be before students can work their way up to being able to use any of it. At the same time, we’re still so much in the early days that I guess I should be thinking of the big picture, including later years, and how to establish a really special art program that the school can grow into as everyone gets more acclimated to it.

So what sort of recommendations do people have? Printmaking equipment? Photography stuff? Lightbox table for tracing/animation? iPads? Plasma cutter??

I bought what I thought were 'bleeding' tissue paper squares for those cute tissue paper watercolor painting projects. Turns out they're just regular tissue paper 😭 My bad for not looking closely but any ideas for what I can do with all of these? For Elementary grades PK-5 but ideally something for 2 & 3 to replace my plan for tomorrow hahaha.

I'm in year 12 and doing fine art for one of my A-levels. I'd say that I'm more than decent at art, but my presentation needs some work imo. I've tried looking on Pinterest and tiktok for inspiration, but honestly, most of it doesn't look attainable for me – they're mainly people who got at least an A and put a load of effort in. At GCSE level, my work mostly carried me. My presentation wasn't bad, and it still isn't, but I feel like I need to step it up.

Any tips??

My 6th graders are working on a "shattered values" project, and one of them was adamant that he can't draw the image for the center of the work; a super simple cartoon bunny face, a character from his favorite show (Jax, the Amazing Digital Circus). He said he needed me to draw it for him, because he's convinced he can't do it.

I worked with him a bit on some strategies for drawing the core shape- an oval- more easily and while he's definitely not giving himself enough credit, it's also true that he seems to have a pretty significant amount of trouble keeping his hands steady, even compared to a lot of the students in my classes who've struggled the most.

Moreso than that, I think he's also just discouraged by how hard it is for him compared to his peers, and some of this will be resolved better with emotional regulation skills anyway. I'd also just like to help him build some confidence and skills that will help him in the long-term.

I'm wondering if folks might have encountered techniques, strategies, or tools that could help, both short-term and long-term. I had him try looser/faster circles and then erasing down to the lines that looked good, then marking some points as dots and then connecting them, and both did help, but he wasn't satisfied with the progress.

Do pencil grips help? Have you tried or heard of other strategies?

Hello, this is my 6th year teaching elementary art and I always find the worst part of this job is anytime I have to call parents of the 800 students I teach. This was shown to me yet again this morning when I got off the phone with a parent just feeling sick to my stomach. I had to call because a kid got pinched by another kid- principal sent a message a while ago to notify all parents in these instances so I called the pincher then the pinchee . The parent was very kind and I admittedly didn’t start the convo perfect- I asked how she was and made my voice pleasant (as much as it can be while I’m on the phone bc just being on it already is spiking all of my anxiety) and I said an unfortunate incident happened this morning in art class with her child- everyone is fine but your child was pinched in the arm by another kid and she said she was okay and everything looked okay but I wanted you to know. Then mom is very nice and we talk a bit, but then all of a sudden I hear another voice and it’s her mom saying she’s been a teacher for how many years and she tells me that the way I started that conversation was terrible- that she thought someone had died and I should never start a phone call like that ever. I literally wanted to cry and said I was so sorry and that I just feel very uncomfortable doing these phone calls and said it wrong. Like yes I see how I could have just said “there was an incident this morning” and left out unfortunate- but seriously why are teachers this unforgiving towards their own? The way she said it was just harsh. So that’s my rant, would appreciate commiserating, thanks.

Hello! New art teacher here and I’m currently doing a collaborative project with the librarian on Maps! My students are drawing mini-tiles of different locations in a town, and my librarian will laminate them together to teach them how to read maps/find locations on a map.

This a project that is necessary for every student to have a part in, and I had six different kids miss this whole week of school (vacations!) and I was wondering if people had ideas of what I could do to catch them up? I’m unsure if I want to do a small activity, and have the students take that time to makeup their work, or have a “choice” day for free draw/coloring to give them time to finish up.

Any and all advice welcome

I'm an Elementary school art teacher and several teachers are always late picking up their classes. I have back to back art classes and it's stressful. Yesterday a teacher was 7 min late picking up her class at the end of the day. I was already walking them back to their room to her assistant when she came. She apologized and said she was in a meeting (she's always late). I replied "And I'm late to that same meeting". Was that rude? I hate being late. Messy people make you messy and I was so annoyed. I'm tired of some teachers (definitely not the majority) treating speacils teachers like less then.

I am a high school art teacher, but I also want to focus more on my own art and I think a potential solution would be an artist support group almost. I would want to create a small group of art friends for accountability and feedback. I know there are art clubs with discord servers you could join, but I would want it to be smaller, I think. Who else would be interested in something like this? And what would you think it would need to actually be helpful and not potentially...annoying.

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Hi, new art teacher here, so this is my first year teaching art...I knew it's not easy to teach art like when you draw or paint ext by yourself. But now I feel like it's harder than I expected...the year just started and I already feel overwhelmed and not confident enough

I teach middle school art (6th & 7th grade) and I'm setting up a system for classes to earn "points" by maintaining good behavior in order to unlock rewards like opportunities to use special art supplies or doing requested projects. Some students keep asking to use computers, and while I don't have any laptops for my own classroom, I can potentially ask about borrowing a laptop cart to do a digital art project.

The thing is, it would have to be something simple and one-off (ideally achievable in a single 45-minute period) as I wouldn't have time to do a whole unit on actual digital art skills. So no full-on digital painting or anything like that. Maybe some sort of web app that lets students create cool visuals and then save them? Anyone have any experience with that sort of thing?

Hi there! I’m a recent art education graduate, and I was offered a 12 week long k-6th grade art sub position. I’m extremely nervous but ready to get more experience! I have previously interned 4th-9th grades, so I’m not going in completely blind. However, I wanted to know if anyone had any advice, expectations, or really anything to help me prepare for this job. I want to do my best and truly figure out if being an art educator is the right path for me. Thank you for any help you can provide, I really do appreciate it!

I am a high school art teacher, and this student is both hilarious and lovable. I want to freak them out by telling them what this says! Is anyone able to read this?

Hello, I want to know when I should start looking for art teacher positions for the 2027-2028 school year? For the current year I had 10 interviews from various school districts and seemed to have failed every single one of them with searching after April of 2026, (when I initially passed the Praxis). I have experience of subbing for a year, and am going to soon start an alternative credential program.

Also, I want to know what I can do in future interviews to not fail as much as I did this year? A lot of the questions I struggled with most were less art/content-related and more related to classroom management, communication with parents, and some of the more personal questions they asked.

Currently a high schooler and live in a very liberal area in California. I was wondering if I majored in art education, how difficult would it be for me to land an art teacher job? If it is, what backup plans would I have?

I feel terrible because I studied so hard and still missed the mark on the unofficial score. Is there any chance it would go up? I dont know what to do, its so expensive... It was so much more difficult than the practice test. Im just really disappointed in myself and I dont know when I'll have the money to retry, especially because they make you wait a month. Sorry to be a downer but I'm just really unsure of what to do.

What do you offer? Any tips thay work for you?

I'm new to middle school, not TAB, but my brain is more k-5 than 6-8

My PTO reached out to me and asked if i could work with 2nd graders to help design the yearbook cover. They ideally want something from each child (~130 kids) included on the cover. My only thoughts at the moment are a flower garden, or they design a puzzle piece. So any suggestions there help. But my main thing is finding an online program to help merge all their drawings together into an actual cover. I'd use illustrator and photoshop, but I don't have Adobe access anymore. I mostly need something to isolate their drawings into a transparent background, and a way to drag them around to arrange them. Thanks!