Name Tags/Bins

I am lucky enough to have big cabinets with shelves and bins in them. This is where my students store they sketchbooks and projects. I used to have them just make any old nametage for the front. 6th graders would spend the most time on it while 8th graders would quickly scribble down their name.
I came up with the idea to make nametags, using postive/negative space and pattern. We usually do it in the beginning of the trimester when I assign bins. I have them do a warm up worksheet, based on Mona Brooks' Drawing for Older Children & Teens book. Then we look at examples and talk about what they see (how the letters go off the page, the patterns, etc.) and I do a demo on how to make "hollow" letters.

Welcome!

Welcome! I've finally succumbed to blogging. I'm a middle school art teacher in the Portland Metro Area. This is my 5th year teaching. Before that, I was a graphic designer. I am currently on the board for the Oregon Art Education Association and am actively involved in that organization. I hope to post lessons, ideas and "Tales from G14A" (my art classroom) on here.

Classroom (G14A)

I came in a few weeks before summer ended and tackled my tables. While they are nice and big, classes last year had REALLY destroyed them with writing. I wanted to paint them each a different color. I had some leftover acrylic paint and decided to go for it! I tried sanding a few down, to get most of the sharpie off. Then I gave up on that. I got a water-based polyurethane to coat them. However, once I put the poly on, you could see all the writing that I wasn't able to remove. I'm not sure why! So then I decided to label the tables with the color that they were painted, to cover up spots that had a lot of writing left. I think the end result turned out pretty good! It also makes it easier to move students ("Go sit at the blue table") and do group activities.
*Note: this picture was taken before school started. My room is never this clean!