Fourth and Fifth grade artists have been busy putting their art room sketchbooks together the first weeks of school. Their sketchbooks stay in the art room and we use them in lots of different ways – note taking, brainstorming art ideas, thumbnail “thinking” sketches, and just plain doodling.
For extra inspiration, I’ve been showing both grades how to do a variety of Zentangles – they are loving them!
Zentangles
Squiggle drawings
I started the year using Zentangles with 4-6th grade! I wanted to make sure they all know how to do it so if they finish a project early, they can get a precut Zentangle tile and keep busy making art!
Oh good idea to have pre-cut tiles, I’ll have to make some up. I asked my 4/5 grades to draw and label 5 of their favorite zentangle designs in their sketchbooks so they would have a “library” to refer to when they were ready to create more in their sketchbooks. But I think they’d get into having a portable little tile to take with them too.
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I love the Zentangles! I am getting my masters in Art Therapy and we talk all the time about the calming effect of Zentabgles! I want to do these with my students this year!
I’m very curious about your 4/5 sketchbooks! You mentioned the kids put them together? Could you tell me more about how you create your sketchbooks, and where you store them?? Our art room is only so big, but I want to have a place where kids can get their sketchbooks on their own!!
Thanks for your wonderful blog!
Hi Laura – sorry for the delay in replying! Sketchbooks – we use the Book Making Classroom Pack from Sax Arts – comes with materials to make 30 6×9 spiral bound books. The kit runs around $50 for 30 sketchbooks, which is pretty reasonable – my 4th graders keep them through for 2 years and use them as 4th and 5th graders – they take them home when they move to 6th grade. The kit comes with lots of extra paper so kids can add more paper as they go. I keep the sketchbooks in one of those 3-drawer plastic rolling carts – one deep drawer holds one class, so I can get 3 classes in a cart. Easy for the kids to use for storage too. Hope that helps! Here’s a link to the sketchbooks: http://www.amazon.com/Sax-Book-Making-Classroom-crafts/dp/B003V1FAZU