Back to School Art Activity CAT in a BOX Painting Project Visual Guide
Explore acrylic paints with this perfect Back to School lesson that suits early elementary to upper elementary. This Visual Guide for a short draw and paint art activity was inspired by the illustrations in the book - 'Splat the Cat', a great story about the first day jitters that students experience. Created for students to explore drawing with shapes and basic painting, mixing skills. With older students this is a great skill review or a self-directed bonus activity at your independent painting station, when you have early finishers.
For younger students, run as a teacher guided lesson to develop knowledge and skills for painting, like painting around shapes edges accurately, filling in shapes, mixing new colors (colours).
The final product makes a great display for a literary connection and back to school activity.
✅ Suitable for Early to Mid Elementary students in 1st - 4th grades.
Do you run exploratory art stations or fast finisher art centers (centres) in your classroom or art room? Then you are always needing new ideas for independent activities that students will enjoy. I started creating Visual Guides for my students to use independently, step-by-step for mini projects they work on at the painting table. Projects that build technical skills and media experience while allowing personal interpretation. These Visual Guides worked so well that I wanted to share them with you too.
When students can independently work at a choosing center (centre), you can get on with supporting those students that need more help. Also fabulous when you have early finishers that need a bonus activity to go on with, while the rest of your class finishes the current class project. Or use as a filler activity for those extra sessions that happen when events mess with our timetables. Works well for a sub lesson too.
Praise from teachers who have already used:
→PAINTED PEBBLES Art Activity Visual Guide a quick Skill Builder for PAINT
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "Thank you for creating this resource, it was helpful and engaging for my students."
How will this product add value to your art curriculum?
✅ Use to build independent prior knowledge before starting a whole class project on PAINTING.
✅ Guides new learning for students who have not experienced PAINTING before
✅ Consolidates knowledge for & extend students who have used PAINT in the past.
✅ Great early finishers activity in a choosing center (centre) between projects
✅ Easy to follow Sub lesson
✅ Last minute filler activity for those extra lesson times
✅ Quick guided lesson with stunning outcomes
Print this art lesson Visual Guide's step-by-step thumbnail pages - full size and in color (colour), laminate back to back and add to the PAINTING table for students to use independently.
View the preview to fully understand the potential of this art lesson visual guide for your independent early finishers art centers (centres).
Introduce the art lesson to you students by sharing the PDF slides with the full size photos, on your large screen, asking students to infer the steps, clarifying any misunderstandings and explaining your expectations. Then leave them to it and watch them grow in responsibility and self management. You can even put some students in charge of the clean up section on a rotation basis.
Select VIEW > enter full screen for presentation mode. Then use the arrow keys on your keyboard to drive a smooth slideshow experience, like a pro :)
❤️ Why should you trust my lessons?
I am both a general ed. classroom teacher and currently practising as a Visual Art and Digital Media specialist educator, teaching students from ages 4-12, at a primary school. I do this every day, just like you! My experience and knowledge are up to date with current practise.
❤️ How will this resource help busy teachers, who are nervous about teaching art?
No worries - I’ve got you covered.
This visual guide includes the materials list and teacher information, giving you the confidence to run the activity in your own classrooms.
❤️ So what is special about this resource?
This art activity introduces students to the medium and techniques of ACRYLIC PAINT. It uses easily available resources and lends itself to creative diversity.
Students get to express their unique ideas through personal choices and modifications, while working through the project.
❤️ Take the stress out of prepping activities for art stations,
❤️ Avoid endless hours of research and resource creation
❤️ Avoid possible frustrations for students working on your main guided PAINTING art projects, that result from not having time to explore a media or technique, beforehand, and build that crucial prior knowledge and confidence with this medium.
⏰ How long should I run an art station for?
If you are an art teacher, then you can make that call based on your programme. For classroom teachers, I recommend that an art center stays open for at least a week, prior to starting a guided, whole class art project with that medium.
Then for another week after completing that project, so that early finishers can further experiment independently. This quick project will take 2 lessons due to paint drying time.
❤️ Why should I run art centers (centres) in my classroom? Isn't that just for art teachers?
The short answer is NO.
We can no longer omit art explorations from our classrooms.
Art can make a powerful contribution to our students' mental health
In addition to helping students develop a number of important skills, free expression (like using art stations or art centers) is also good for overall health and well-being. Giving young children a creative outlet can help relieve stress and work through things happening in their lives. By encouraging artistic expression, you can help facilitate further learning and engagement. Making art can help children to deal with a wide range of mental health issues and psychological stress, like anxiety. View further information about this topic from Michigan State University HERE
View the previews above, then add to cart and smile, knowing you can set up & run your art station with confidence.
Praise from teachers who have used one of my longer, comprehensive multi-lesson PAINT Art Project plans:
→ POPPY Paint & collage art lesson for MEMORIAL, REMEMBRANCE and ANZAC DAYS 4th-7th grade
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "Personally one of my favourite art activities I have completed with my composite 5/6 students. They loved the process and the finished product just as much. Thank you."
This Visual Guide is useful as a supporting activity for the following art station guide, available HERE...
→ What Is Painting Guide for Art Stations or Centers Elementary Grades which includes:
- The guide cover
- What is Paint
- History of Paint x2
- Types of Paint we use x2
- Materials List
- Making a Painting
- Can you make a marbled painted paper (a QR code links to my video tutorial)
- paint clean-up
- Teacher Information
- Teacher instructions
- Blanks slides for you to add your own instructions x2
And a slide with recommended lessons for your next whole class Painting project, with links.
More Art station set up cards are available for your art centers (centres) HERE more being added all the time:
View the Previews above, then add to cart and smile, knowing you have just saved yourself heaps of time and effort!
✅ Where can I find more art lessons like this one on this site?
Click the links in the description above, or...
→ You can browse all my Art Stations / Early Finishers / Sub support resources HERE
→ Browse all my comprehensive art lessons provided as PDF presentation lesson HERE: VISUAL ART STORE
→ If you would prefer the added support of guided video tutorials, browse my growing collection in this custom category HERE: ART LESSONS WITH VIDEO TUTORIALS
→ For my Elements of Art lessons, click HERE: ART ELEMENTS
Or Visit my TPT store - One Teacher's Journey - HERE Use the custom categories to browse or search the shop with key words.
⭐️ Save the One Teacher’s Journey store to your favourites - click HERE.
⭐️ Register as a member for this site
→ Click on LOG IN/ REGISTER at the top of the page. Once approved, you will be added to our email list to gain occasional updates and get access to our Free Resources Catalogue.
View all the previews above before you buy. If you have any questions, contact me BEFORE you purchase.
⭐️ Would you recommend this lesson to your colleagues? Then please return to rate & comment as this helps to inform other teachers about how this product brought value to your teaching.
Every care is taken with editing this resource and at times, errors can still sneak through. If you have any questions, contact me first, and be specific in your request so that I can make those improvements and give you, and others the best quality lesson plans.
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➡️ TERMS OF USE
Review the TOUs in the PDF preview prior to purchasing.
Created by Timea Willemse, © One Teacher's Journey, © Help Me Learn
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