You have too much to do to think about how to approach painting lessons in your classroom; let me help you.
Acquire buckets for your water if you don’t have the luxury of a sink. Use two desks for your buckets located in the centre of the room on mop-able flooring in case of spills. Have one large bucket for clean water and another bucket for dirty water. Lucky you if you have a sink.
Supplies:
- Large buckets with lids for transporting clean and dirty water. Available at bakeries for a nominal fee
- Small margarine/yogurt containers for the children to take to their painting station – one for water, others to mix paint in
- Brushes of various sizes
- Hockey Puck type paints (less mess) – red, blue, yellow, black and white.
- Five ice cream pails (medium size buckets) to store dry paint in, one for each colour
- Lids from these pails to hold the paints for each table
- Small Cardboard box to put brushes in to dry
- Art Paper
Prep:
- Have your water bucket ready to go
- Lay out newspapers on a counter – two or three layers to dump buckets and lids upside down to dry at the end of the lesson
- Clear a spot for the children’s art work at the end of the class. Paintings need some time to dry.
- Research/decide what art concept you will be teaching – consider colour mixing as you are only supplying the primary colours. Remember you’re on a budget!
Organizing your students:
- Let the students form groups of four – allow them to put their desks together so they can share supplies (paint and water)
- One student will get newspaper to put on the desks to prevent the need to wash desks. That student will also throw the newspaper out at the end of the class
- One student will get the art paper from you (one of your two jobs). Never allow the paper out of your hand because the pile will hit the floor and get stepped on!
- One student will pick up the hockey pucks of paint for the table and return them to the storage pails at the end of the class
- One student will look after the water; dipping clean and dumping dirty
Attitude shift for you…
- Do not clean up after the students. The students will wash the hockey puck paint BEFORE they use it – or not, it will be a group decision. You won’t have to nag about this one. The students will use the ice cream pail lids and yogurt containers to mix paint on; and again, this will be cleaned at the beginning of the next class. At least think about this revolutionary idea…
- You will give the students a one minute warning before you need to clean up. When that minute is up you will pick up the brushes (no exceptions). This is your second job during the painting lesson. As you pick up the brushes carry a small container of water to clean the brushes as you pick them up. You will lay them flat in the cardboard box when you are done. Do not forget – you want the brushes to not be curled up overnight. Insist that no one clean anything up at the end of the class. I fought against human nature for fifteen years before I realized that if the paints and lids are NOT cleaned its OK! The equipment will be cleaned (or not, remember it’s the students’ choice) before they paint another day. Remind students to dump dirty water and turn containers upside down on the newspapers you set up for this purpose.© Susan Carter