Nasty Concrete Walls! (How to Display Student Work)

You know what I'm talking about right?  Those gross, make-me-gag concrete walls every school has that you just happen to be in charge of decorating.  Yeah those ones.  I spent the first two years of my art teacher career battling it out with those walls and it wasn't until this year that I finally found a solution that is cost effective and a time saver (compared to other attempts).

What you'll need:

-heavy duty duct tape
-hot glue & hot glue gun
-extension cord (if needed)
-butcher paper


What to do:

1. Heat up the good old glue gun that takes a good while to heat up.

2. Cut the butcher paper to the size you need to cover your desired area.  I know lots of people say black or grey are good colors for displaying artwork, but come on people - this is elementary school, not a haunted house - so I choose blue or deep purple.

3. Using heavy duty duct tape, place a rolled piece at each corner of the paper.  Now you are ready to put up the butcher paper and adjust how it is hanging.  The tape in each corner allows you to make the adjustments with ease without being overly committed.

4. Once you have your butcher paper in place.  Slide the glue gun just under the lip of the butcher paper and go to glue town around the edges of the paper.  Keep extra glue sticks handy in your pocket for easy reloading.

5. Once the butcher paper is up, you can tape the artwork on and it will hold until the cows come home.  Sometimes, I will have already glued the students artwork to the butcher paper before taping and gluing it up.  The choice is yours- both take equal amounts of time.

6. To take down art, simply grab hold of an edge of the paper with the hot glue (or is it cool glue now that it's no longer hot?) and slowly pull away the paper from the wall.  Some tearing may happen, but honestly, it's not happened to me yet.  Then I grab a pair of scissors and cut out each work of art and have them delivered to the classrooms.

Voila!  Sounds like a lot, but believe me, when you spend hours taping up artwork only to come in the next day and find them on the floor, you'll find this method to be much more time effective.

Good luck! I hope this helps!

Here's The Truth...

I have been a teacher for ten years now.  For the first seven, I taught second, third, and fourth grades.  After that, I was ready for a change.  After some soul searching, I packed my general ed bags and moved to a new school right into the resource classroom to teach art where I have been for the past three years.  Despite my art background in grad and undergrad school as well as teaching summer school art, nothing could have prepared me for the big surprise I was in for and there have definitely been many ups and downs.  All of it worth while, all of it helped me to grow as an educator, all of it makes my heart smile.  In this blog, I want to share all of the tips, tricks, and lessons in art that I have learned and to share what 650 kids (all under the age of ten) have taught me in return.  So sit back and relax, I went to the rodeo for the both of us, all you have to do is coast right along and enjoy the view from where you are - at a safe distance and free of paint, boogers, and glue. 

-Yours truly, 

Nichole :)