Johnson Elementary School

At Johnson Elementary, I taught grades K-5 in a TAB based classroom (Teaching Artistic Behavior), which means that these lessons were based around introducing materials and methods of art making and opening them to the students to freely explore and experiment. For each lesson I taught, I included a contemporary artist to help explain the material and process to the students. The format of these lessons is largely the same. I start every day with Good Things, allowing students to start class on a positive note. We talk about an element in their Social Contract, keeping them accountable for the rules they set for themselves. We learn about the artist, new vocabulary words, watch a video or look at images, and have a discussion or write sentences based on the information presented in the video or lesson. The bulk of the time is used for art making. Students are free to explore the studio as they would like. I walk around and assist with anything they need. Afterwards, we save time to clean up and reflect on what we did today.