Just last week, one of my fifth grade students tried to make more time to work: she added ten more minutes on the timer I had set to alert us it was clean up time. Good thing I realized this before the classroom teacher arrived! Nice try by a passionate artist.

There is a better way to find more time for students to create. Flipping a lesson means that students get more work time at school because they learn concepts before class starts. Since I teach in an elementary school, I do a modified flip by creating short videos that the class watches at the beginning of class. My students retain the information longer and can’t interrupt. Less interruptions = more time for them to work!

My first flipped lesson happened out of necessity. One particular class kept missing their art time for one reason or another. They were in the middle of a clay project and had to finish it because a holiday vacation was coming up. It was almost impossible to keep the clay workable that long! So I created a video, and sent them the link in Google Classroom to watch at home. At seven minutes long, it was a bit longer than I would have liked, but it got the job done. When my students came in the next day, they knew exactly what to do to finish their projects.​

Another good reason to me flip a lesson is because I know the demonstration will be too long. I created a timelapse video of making a craft stick basket. The students love this project, but it is challenging for some fifth grade students. To make sure they have enough class time to work, I have them watch this, a thirty minute process that is whittled down to three minutes!

I found that recording this way was really easy, and the students could see exactly what I was doing. I used the time-lapse video setting on the camera and then edited the video in iMovie. No audio, just notes and a few titles that I created while I was editing. And the best part? Students could watch it again and again while I helped other students.

Give your students more time to create and maximize teacher-student interaction time. Try flipping a lesson and see how it works. No time to create a video? See if one already exists on YouTube!

Maybe your students will want to make a craft stick basket… I know there’s a decent video for that!


Let me know how it goes! Write a comment below 🙂

This post was first published on Education Closet, January 2017.

WHILE I WAS LISTENING TO NEAL, MY TAB ART ROOM AND ARTS INTEGRATION/STEAM SIDE CAME TOGETHER WITH A GREAT IDEA…If RISD students could have hands-on access to natural specimens, why couldn’t mine? Elementary students would LOVE examining natural materials. I started to make a list of items that would be appropriate scientific specimens for a K-5 art room:

• Insects – how about some real specimens?
• Animals – realistic plastic toys, I have some in the cellar (Don’t tell my son!)
• Photos of animals, plants, etc – I have collected old books for this purpose.
• Leaves – it is fall in New England, that one is easy! (Just collect some :)
• Gourds, fruits and vegetables – the art room has these already.
• Feathers – I’ll need to find some clean, natural feathers
• Bones – I have a Mr. Thrifty skeleton already!

Students love the plastic fruits, vegetables and gourds. Imagine for a moment, twenty children setting up their own small still life at the same time! It is really something. Mr. Thrifty, the skeleton, will make his appearance this week. I wonder how the students will react to him. Some of the other items I plan to ask for in a grant from our local learning foundation.

Okay, teacher friends: during cleanup time, do your students remember to put the caps on the glue sticks? Do they put them on properly? Do they put them on at all? It seems that I always need to remind many of my elementary students to do this little chore without smashing the top of the glue stick into the cap. How could I get this point across to them in a way that students would remember?
The first thing I tried was modeling. I had my classroom puppet, Alien, explain how to open the glue stick, turn it up a bit, and turn it down before putting the cap on so you don’t squish the glue stick’s little “head.” Kindergarten and first grade students loved this, but it seemed that many students still “forgot.” Wasting glue is not good for the art budget. Repeating the same phrase over and over: not so good for the teacher’s brain.

I took a photo of one of our glue sticks in an art supply basket I put at each table. Then I opened the ChatterPix app, chose my photo, then selected “next.” The app prompted me to draw a line where I wanted the mouth to appear and I tapped the record button to record my voice. I added sticker eyes and my talking glue stick came alive!
If you watched the video, you probably noticed that this glue stick has a man’s voice- not mine! That’s because when I got home to show my husband, he really wanted to create the voice for it, and I agreed. This way, the students know it is not me… it is the glue stick’s real voice (wink, wink)!  Honestly, glue stick etiquette has improved, and some students look for that talking glue stick in their supply basket!
In ChatterPix Kids, you have 30 seconds to record your voice, you can also add stickers and text. When your recording is complete, simply send it to your camera roll. It is an easy and engaging app for students to create their own animated image.
When I first discovered this app by Duck Duck Moose, I planned on having students use it to describe their art. Just think of the possibilities! Students can create art, take a picture of it and describe their process. In their classrooms, students can tell a story with this app, or take a picture of an inanimate object, give it a voice and embed it in a presentation.
True arts integration is teaching and learning through two or more different content areas. Across all grades and disciplines, students must learn to speak audibly and express their ideas clearly. This is written in the English Language Arts CCSS in Speaking and Listening. Creating audio recordings is encouraged and listed in those same standards starting in second grade.
In our new National Core Arts Standards, students are Creating, Presenting, Responding and Connecting. Within Presenting, students can use technology to exhibit their work, create new content and create digital portfolios. I have listed some of the CCSS and NCAS that align with this app below.
Do you have ideas for lessons that include ChatterPix or other ways to give a picture a voice? I’d love to hear about your creative lessons. Leave a comment below!

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.2.5
Create audio recordings of stories or poems; add drawings or other visual displays to stories or recounts of experiences when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.4.5
Add audio recordings and visual displays to presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.5.5
Include multimedia components (e.g., graphics, sound) and visual displays in presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.5
Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest.
NATIONAL CORE ARTS STANDARDS- Visual Arts
Anchor Standard 4: Select, analyze, and interpret artistic work for presentation.
VA:Pr4.1.3a
Visual Arts, Presenting, grade 3
Investigate and discuss possibilities and limitations of spaces, including electronic, for exhibiting artwork.
VA:Pr4.1.IIa
Visual Arts, Presenting, high school
Analyze, select, and critique personal artwork for a collection or portfolio presentation.

​This post was first published on Education Closet.