I think every teacher, especially a specials teacher wonders what to do the first week of school. We always make portfolios that we use to store and sort all the students art work during the school year. I hold on to most of my students art for art shows and for displays. Each grade level makes one of these portfolios except kindergarten. Kindergarten makes an art book but that is for another post.
I have each student use a manilla paper for the front and a colored paper for the back. We use 18x11 paper as I find that this fits nicely into my storage cubbies and it also holds all the papers we use for most projects with just a little sticking out. I have each student put their name really large on the front of the folder along with their teacher name and grade somewhere on the front too. I use this opportunity to teach a lettering lesson for each grade. For 3rd, 4th and 5th we discuss block and bubble lettering as well as positive and negative space. The older students also put patterns on the inside of their letters. Many of the students take it above and beyond with their creativity. With my younger students we practice writing really BIG letters (always a challenge) and then I encourage them to turn their letters into creatures or different objects. They can also place their name in a unique environment like outer space or the mountains. To staple the folders I have the older students use 4 to 5 staples for the 2 short sides and the bottom leaving the top open creating a pocket folder. I staple the folders for the younger studets which may seem like a lot but I just do one table at a time while they are working on them in class.
These projects help me and my students get organized while starting the year off with fun and easy art that everyone enjoys making.
