My car, My butterfly, My birdhouse, My castle, My sandcastle, What I like to do in the summer, This is What I want to Buy, My fall picture, My favorite pet, This is me.

     There are 30 different titles and 30 different art pages for a total of 60 pages.  They are not in a book so they can be taken out and simply put in a copy machine and copied without having to turn pages etc.  The Title pages are colored and ready to laminate. This is an activity that my 5th grade students loved to do and would remind me without fail on Monday that they needed their new art start for the week. 

Art in children encourages them to develop the creative part of their brain.  Many students as they progress through elementary school stop drawing for a variety of reasons.  Maybe they think that their picture isn’t as good as the student next to them, but most of all it is because they are in an “idea drought”.

     This folder was designed for students in an “idea drought.”  It gives the student the idea and they can develop and build on it.  The most fun will come when you put all the ideas together in a big binder so the students can go through and enjoy everyone’s ideas.

     Your art starts will come in a folder.  On one side are the ideas that you can run off and give to your students to work on.  I suggest that you make this a Monday assignment and then give them all week to develop it.  The other set of pages are the title pages.  If you will take them out you will find that they are all in color and you can laminate them, three hole punch them and have them ready to go into the binder as you give that particular art start to your students.

     On Monday when you give out the Art Starts page take 5 minutes and explore the subject briefly with them, then give them at least 15 minutes to get started.  Encourage the students to use the paper just like a canvas, use the whole area.  Encourage the use of color instead of just black and white.  Explain to them that all artists sign their work and not on the back.  They need to take pride in their work.

     On Friday when they are handed in, take them to a three hole puncher and punch holes in them, then inset the laminated title page in a large binder, so you can add to it all year, and then add the students work to the binder.  Leave the binder where students and visitors to your classroom have ready access and can sit and enjoy the work.  You might want to title the binder “Classroom Book of Art”

    The most important part is to let them enjoy, but discourage any violence or blood etc.