On stage in my classroom I may appear a little crazy, but behind the scenes my project planning is all no-nonsense. When I made the shift from only teaching middle school to a K-8 format, I started seeing 26 different classes in 9 grade levels each week. I realized that I was drowning in work when getting kicked out of my classroom by the custodians every night became part of my regular routine. Streamlining my daily time management quickly rose to #1 on my priorities list. Not knowing where to start, I called on one of my district's secret weapons. Enter Emilee Taylor, a seasoned teacher and art teacher support specialist, with some great advice. The answer was simple: teach the same project to 2 grade levels simultaneously. It makes way more sense to teach 5 projects at a time than 9, and the amount of time I spend preparing supplies has been drastically reduced. I can even go a little further and plan back-to-back periods with projects that use the same supplies! I still re-use lessons, but instead of recycling them annually I use a two year rotation.
What easy art teaching time and energy saving hints do you have?
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