5 Art Sub Lessons for Winter

Art Sub Lessons for Winter Break and the New Year

Seeking art lessons for after winter break? Here ya go. Here are some elementary art lessons that would make great sub lessons for the new year. Some have directions and visuals included and some you will need to tweak a little.

"Winter landscapes by 1st grade - one day project" by Mrs. Knight's Smartest Artists. One day lessons can make great sub lessons.  This one makes such a gorgeous work of art. Paint isn't a great medium for subs, but can be substituted with crayons or markers.  If you will let your sub use markers, make sure you  leave lots of instruction about how the students should use them.

"Snowman Directed Drawing Art Activity," by Proud to Be Primary. This blog post includes both written directions and plenty of visuals.  Crayons or markers can easily replace the paint used in the blog post.

"A Cup of Fantasy," at Arteascuola.  These painted cups are so colorful.  I am sure they can be recreated in crayon or marker.  You could make step-by-step visuals pretty easily for this one.

"How to Draw Penguins," by Cassie Stephens.  In this blog post, Cassie gives visuals, including a step-by-step one for how to draw the simple penguin shapes.  Students add whatever details they think up, so these can all be individualized.

"Patterns for the New Year," by Strong Rock Elementary Art Gallery blog.  This teacher gives an overview of this lesson about goals for the new year.  You could provide your sub with simple visuals and directions to go along with this lesson.

6 Art Sub Lessons for Winter and the Holidays

Art Sub Plans for Winter

Oh, boy. Teachers are wondering what to do with their antsy art classes this last week before winter break. Don’t give up and give them over to videos. Fun art lessons for that last week before Christmas vacation can be had at this TPT shop: Centers and Early Finishers.

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Here are some updated entries to lessons you would benefit from before the break.

Click here for more winter/Christmas/break lessons and worksheets:  Ugly Christmas Sweaters and more!

Art Sub Lesson - Special Needs - Yarn Wrap

Art Sub Idea for Special Needs

Trying to figure out lessons for my special needs students was always a challenge, but trying to figure out something for a sub to teach them was way more difficult.

Just now I saw this art activity which would be totally doable by a sub (with assistants...You do have assistants in there with you, right?).  It looks like a no-fail lesson.
You still have to do some prep, but if you don't mind that, it should be all good.  

Here's a Christmas star ornament from Nanny Gunna. 

 Certainly, this doesn't need to be a Christmas ornament. Hanging decorations can be assigned for any use!

Elementary Art Sub Lessons for Winter

Elementary  Art Sub Lessons for Winter and Christmas

Here is a winter activity that elementary kids will have fun creating. It was written so that it could be used as a winter drawing lesson for an art sub or as a learning center activity.

Students often ask if they can do a Christmas art lesson. This activity is geared as a winter activity, but the student could turn it into a Christmas one.

You can find it at the Teachers Pay Teachers store: Centers and Early Finishers.

Art Sub Plan - The Colorful Art of Bruce Gray

I recently discovered the art of Bruce Gray and I am in love!

He is mainly a sculptor but paints as well.  Here is his website:  brucegray.com

He has done a lot of work that has been featured on tv and in movies. You can see all about that on his site. You can also buy art right from him there! (I am going to have to save up to buy the pieces I really, really want, but he also has reproductions.)

He seems to be a good guy. On his site, he has some pages of student work that was inspired by his own work. I thought that was pretty cool that he would do that.

Anyway, I asked him if I could create an art lesson featuring his work and he said yes! What a nice guy.

Here are some of the comments left by teachers who left feedback about the lesson:

"Kids & sub loved this. Kids asked to finish their drawings when I was back! Perfect no-prep lesson - just get out the computer paper and circle templates!" 

"Excellent lesson that could be used with a sub or a normal day in art. I know my students will enjoy this super lesson." 

You can check that out at my TeachersPayTeachers shop: Art Sub Lessons.

Art Sub Plan - The Colorful Art of Bruce Gray

Cubism Autumn - Easy Fall Art Lesson

Cubism Autumn - Easy Fall Art Sub Lessons

Here is a lovely fall lesson that a sub could totally do.  There are plenty of visuals but there is even a video to show to do this.  Check out the blog post here:  Cubism Autumn

.....And check out the YouTube video here: Cubism Autumn Art Lesson Video

Halloween Art Sub Plan - Silly Monsters

Halloween Art Sub Plans - Creating Silly Monsters

Here is a complete, fun lesson to teach or to use as a center. All the visuals you need are included.  It could be printed out or projected.  Art subs and classroom teachers will appreciate how easy it is to use. You can find it here:  TPT Shop: Centers and Early Finishers

Easy Art Sub Plans - The Mitten

This winter art lesson idea was written by a fourth grade classroom teacher. Though her school doesn’t have its own art teacher, she tries to fill in that gap by doing art with her students herself. Because this was created and used by a non-art person, I feel like this would be perfect for a substitute teacher to use. 

You want your art sub lessons to be easy to use, but interesting enough that your kids buy into it. I think this one will do the trick. 

I would use this with first, second, third or fourth grade.

 

This teacher used construction paper, crayons (I am guessing the ones that are made specifically for use on construction paper), and a mitten template.  The snowflake design was cut out of paper and glued on top.

 

If I was going to use this as a sub lesson, I would consider using the construction paper, but would more likely just go with white drawing paper. Markers would make beautiful drawings, but again, I am not sure I would leave my markers available to a sub I didn’t know. (I would want someone to emphasize taking care of markers.)

 

I also would consider having a snowflake template for the kids to trace, as cutting out a snowflake might be one complication too many for a sub. Kids love tracing, so they would love having two things to trace in this lesson.

 

As an inspiration for the lesson I would lead in with a picture book or video. The one that comes to mind first is The Mitten, by Jan Brett. If you do not own it, your school likely owns multiple copies. Check early though. This one is likely to get checked out all winter.

Guess what!!!!  Jan Brett has a YouTube video of herself reading the book!!! A video lead in sounds like a great way to engage the kids. If you have a sub that can work basic technology, I would definitely go with the video.

Visit "Teaching Art with Kelly B." You’ll find multiple examples of her student’s work.

Fill This Jar-Art Worksheet Printables

Free Art Worksheet - How Would you Fill This Jar?

Teachers Pay Teachers has been very good to me. I put a lot of work into my shop and it has been a blessing. Now I am helping my daughter open her own shop.  I am telling you this because there is a good freebie in there for you right now. At some point, it will become a paid product, so go get it now! It would help her out a lot if you would follow her shop and leave feedback too. You would not believe how valuable that is for a shop owner!

Her shop features items to use in learning centers and also products for early finishers. As an art teacher, my contributions will be art-focused, and that's why you arty people might like them.

The item we opened the shop with is an oldy but a goody. You have seen it before, but now you have the visuals to go with it. It can be used as an art center; an early finisher activity; or a quick art lesson.

Whenever she swaps in her next freebie, I will let you know! Find it at Centers and Early Finishers

Halloween Art Sub Plan

Halloween Art Sub Plan for Elementary and Middle School

I always hated creating art sub lessons. It was always so much work.  Whenever I planned to take a day off from work, I wondered if it was worth the hassle. When I retired from full time teaching and decided to sub in art, I found that some teachers left good lesson plans, but many were too bare boned to be very helpful. That's why I decided to create my own shop to sell art sub plans.  All of my lessons are affordable and are full and rich for a sub to teach. They will save you HOURS!!!

This Halloween art lesson is fun for students and easy to teach. The prep for this is minimal. Students will need paper; one black crayon per student; and assorted other crayon colors.

 These are provided to help your sub teach with confidence:
-3 1/2 pages of script so all your sub has to do is read and follow the directions
-5 pages of visuals that accompany the script
-5 pages of supplemental visuals that your students can refer to for details

Here is a preview of what you would get.

 This is a Print and Go lesson so you do not need a projector. However, since it was created with PowerPoint, you could project it if you turn the slides in a different direction first. There is also a .pdf version in this file.

7 Halloween Art Lessons

7 Halloween Themed Art Lessons

Here's a haunted house lesson that I created.  The information about it is in a post at Art Sub Lessons.  Art Sub Lessons - Halloween Haunted Houses

Here's another one.  Yippee!!!  Creating Silly Monsters

Here's an extra goodie of my own.  Subs will love it if you leave a worksheet for those early finishers!!!  This worksheet has an assortment of details for decorating their jack o' lantern. It also has a lightly drawn-in pumpkin for them to use as a base.  As a complete lesson, students could draw on another sheet, their own pumpkin shapes and use the worksheet as a reference.  There is also a sheet with 3 sample decorated pumpkins.  $.99 at my TeachersPayTeachers shop:  Art Sub Lessons.

I found the most wonderful Halloween lessons that could be turned into art sub lessons.  Check these out!!!

Amy, at Makes and Takes, gives step-by-step instructions and many visuals for this lesson. She used black paper and oil pastel, but this could easily be done with crayons on lighter paper.

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At Panicked Teacher, Susie gives you step-by-step instructions on how to make this patterned pumpkin.  I believe she is a classroom teacher who has to supplement art instruction in her class for most of the school year.

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I adore this lesson.  Jana's students (Room9Art) begged her for a Halloween lesson every year. She finally came up with this.  I believe a sub could teach this with the right directions. 

(Her blog no longer exists, but this is what she posted about the lesson on Pinterest. "The crayon coloring needed to be hard enough to deposit a thick layer of wax. Watered-down tempera paint was applied right over the drawing to create these wonderful crayon resist pictures! Every October I hear, " Can we do a Halloween lesson?" and my usual answer is "probably not". Instead of fighting the urge, this year I compromised and decided to combine a cultural theme with Halloween imagery that my students were familiar with and motivated by. The results are spooky, highly detailed, and fun to look at! I made several handouts with a variety of photographs of Native American totem poles, most of which are located in British Columbia. We also read about the process of carving a totem pole as well as the meanings and traditions associated with the display of the poles. I was primarily concerned with the overall design that was evident: Students would be asked to make a stack of characters that had visual impact, strong connections between each part, and a variety of details. . These Halloween stacks are twenty-four inches tall and nine inches wide. We drew a rough draft first, made revisions, and went on to final drafts on white paper. Students drew each part with a regular pencil and outlined it with a black sharpie marker. I asked them to use many types of crayons including metallic glitter crayons and construction paper crayons. They needed to color heavily because we would be applying diluted purple tempera paint over the entire picture. This process is called crayon resist. The purple paint toned down the colors of the crayons just enough to add to that spooky effect that we were going for! Who says that skulls can only be white? This lime green skull looks amazing! Coloring heavily with the crayons paid off when it came time to see how the paint beaded off the picture as the wax resisted it! Nicole was very motivated to use characters from the movie "The Nightmare Before Christmas". Don't you think she did a great job? Awesome colors and a variety of interesting details are sure to keep the viewer's attention! Avery's Halloween stack is a real balancing act! I especially love the way he perched the bats on Frankenstein's "bolts"! If you enjoyed viewing these images we would love to hear your feedback!")

This lesson, at ArtfulNest, was written for middle school.  You could write it up as a fifth-grade lesson or a sixth grade one.  You could also bring it down to the upper primary grades with a change of media.  Leave your subs some good visuals.  They could teach this!            

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Monster lesson.  There are lots of wonderful visuals and complete details here.  It is taught with paint and gadget prints, but you could so easily adapt it with crayons for your sub lesson. Visit Line FrØslev. There are wonderful things over there.

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Here's one done for you already.  Step-by-step instructions were written here by Ms. Crisco over at Crisco Art. Always a good type of lesson to leave for a sub.  

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Relief for Relief Teachers

I just discovered that subs overseas are called "relief teachers." To see if things were the same over there for these angels of mercy, (well you need them, right?), I looked around a bit for posts about them. Yup. They need the same support as subs here in the U.S.

Here is a thorough article, written for subs....er....relief teachers. It is thorough. As a teacher who needs subs, you might find it helpful as well. (Please don't ignore your subs' needs. It is a tough job.)

Read the article here:  Relief for Relief Teachers

11 Easy Art Plans Based on Children's Books

When I sub in art, I enjoy teaching lessons that are tied into children's literature. The instant tie into quality books helps capture the students' attention, which is crucial to teaching in a short term assignment.  

Here are some lessons that use children's literature. You may click on the image to go to the lesson.

The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister

Lesson by Miss Young's Art Room

The Gingerbread Man

Lesson by Art Sub Lessons

Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature, 

by Joyce Sidman and Beth Krommes

Lesson by Sharpy Woman

The Pesky Rat, by Lauren Child

Lesson by Fairy Dust Teaching

Ish, by Peter A. Reynolds

Lesson by Art Project Girl

The BFG, by Roald Dahl

Lesson by Art Sub Lessons

Magic Trash - A Story of Tyree Guyton and His Art

Lesson by The Old Paintbrush

A World of Your Own, by Laura Carlin

Lesson by Art Is Basic

Tar Beach, by Faith Ringgold

Lesson by Art Sub Lessons

The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat

Lesson by Art Sub Lessons

The Night I Followed the Dog, by Nina Laden

Lesson by Art Sub Lessons