I know that we should all still be in the thralls of summertime, laying out by the pool, drinking lemonade, and forgetting what day of the week it is. But, if you are like me, you have already had that first back to school dream (or nightmare) and have started to make strategic goals and plans for making this upcoming school year one the best one yet. Well, I have partnered with Scholastic to get your thinking about your classroom in this post and offer you a giveaway!

When thinking about plans for the fall, one that it a no-brainer for me is the inclusion of Scholastic Art Magazine to my curriculum. For those of you not familiar, it is a resource for your classroom that connects students to artists using a variety of timely themes, genres, and materials through print and online media.

I was lucky that I was first introduced to this resource during my student teaching days back in 2004. My mentor teacher said it was the single most important resource for her classroom because it organized artists and their work in ways that made it both relatable and age-appropriate for students. She had stacks and stacks of magazines that dated from decades before and that we both used them as ways to connect students with content in our lesson plans.

13 years later, I not only have stacks and stacks of my own Scholastic Art Magazines dating back over the last decade-plus that I can use with my students in various ways, I also have access to an online portal that allows students to view the content of current and past issues whenever they want. In addition to the text of the issue, students can access videos, slideshows, and other resources to deepen their understanding of artists, media, and concepts through the online portal. 

Here are a few of ways I use this resource in my classroom:

• Integrate reading and writing strategies in my classroom. 

If your school is like mine, we are always looking for ways to meaningfully weave reading and writing strategies into all of the curriculum. Using Scholastic Art Magazine offers an easy way to do this. Not only can you adjust reading levels on the online portal, you can also print reading comprehension questions at various grade levels to differentiate instruction based on your student population and needs. I use it most often for a writing prompt I call "Artist of Interest" where students use a specific-standards based rubric to write about an artist of their choice from any of the issues offered. 

• Easy substitute teacher plans.

Sometimes it is easier to go to school sick rather than figure out what to have students do when you are gone. As an art teacher, the amount of mess you might come back to when you leave your classroom can make the the idea of going to Professional Development Conferences seem impossible, too. With the amount of grade-level resources included in the subscription to Scholastic Art Magazine, I know that I can be away from my classroom without leaving a basic project behind for kids to do. I can use the worksheets, activity guides, and other resources to engage students in learning that can deepen their understanding of what we are learning in the classroom without the worry of it getting lost through a substitute. ​

• Connect students to Art Careers.

One of the more emerging areas of interest for me is connecting students to a career opportunities. There is a strange false narrative out there that artists can't make a living. I am not sure where it started and why it persists, but it is really not true. All you have to do is turn to the back pages of Scholastic Art Magazine and read the various careers they highlight in their issues. In addition to interviewing various professionals in the field (ranging from Crayon Engineer to Roller Coaster Designer and Wildlife Photographer), Scholastic Art Magazine's online portal showcases these careers in one spot and allows students to learn more about the professions including skills and education needed and even range of salary. I want my students to make art because they enjoy it and I want them to understand that they can also make a living from it.

I have also shared various projects my students have done on this blog using the magazines for research on their Elements and Principle Videos from several years ago as well as their Artist Rooms from just this past year.  I am also obsessed with the student showcase offered in each issue from former Scholastic Art Award winners and use that as a way to show students what their peers are doing in the art world, too.

So, now that you have heard some of the great ways I use Scholastic Art Magazine in my classroom, it is your turn to tell me how you would use it in yours! Thanks to Scholastic, one lucky teacher who comments below about how they would use a Scholastic Art Magazine subscription in their 2017/18 classroom will win a class set! Deadline to participate is July 17th! 

I am excited to read how you would use this great tool for your students, so please share your ideas! Then you can go back to drinking that lemonade, evening out your tan, and wondering what day it is... or more likely start prepping for the school year. 

Students moved from their sketchbooks and into the Scholastic Art Magazine Archives to research and interpret work cataloged there for their viewing pleasure. I cannot fully express how thankful I am for this resource as a result of the funding from our last DonorsChoose project! It was great to share the online content with students today and watch them search through the archives to find artists that spoke to their interests and then share that with the class via our Artist of the Week Schoology Discussion board. I am so thankful to those who helped make this resource available to my students! Students are also starting to think about The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and seeing past winners showcased in the magazines is very inspiring to those hoping to achieve winning works this year. 

Check out the progress of Emma's Cootie Catcher Dress that she is working on for this year's Scholastic Art Award's competition. I think she has a great chance of achieving recognition in the Fashion Design category. This will be the first time I have ever entered student work in this category during the 8 years of entering this competition! 

7th grade students also worked on their Artist of the Week posts using Scholastic Art Magazine. Once done, they completed their knots by turning their designs into a symmetrical image after transferring the first quadrant onto the other three across the horizontal and vertical lines of symmetry. We will use these papers to transfer the image onto a heavier weighted paper and add color starting tomorrow! 

Do you like art, mystery, and and figuring out complicated puzzles? Then you need to start reading Chasing Vermeer, The Wright 3, and The Calder Game by Blue Balliett.

I fell in love with the first book, Chasing Vermeer, several years ago, was incredibly excited to read the second, and I finished the last in the series just today. The series involves these curious kids in Chicago (Hyde Park) that have incredible adventures involving art.

My favorite  is The Wright 3. The book is focuses on a house in their neighborhood, but not just any house - a house designed by one of the most famous architects in Art History, Frank Lloyd Wright. I have been to the Robie House and really got swept away in the imagery of the struggle and excitement in the book. There is actually a Frank Lloyd Wright House that is similar to the Robie House in Grand Rapids, MI called the Meyer May house. You can visit both houses, as they are both open for tours and have been restored to show Wright's original intent with his design.

The final book, The Calder Game, major emphasis is on work by Alexander Calder (who also has a large public sculpture in Grand Rapids, MI - La Grande Vitesse located in Calder Plaza). This book is just as filled with mystery and art as the others, and even includes mention of Banksy - a street artist that we study in 8th grade.

I hope you will take the time to check out these books (and yes, there are pictures inside - beautiful illustrations by Brett Helquist). If you do read them, or check out sculptures/paintings by the artists in the book, or if you have your own summer reading suggestions, let me know with a post below.