ATCs for Art Criticism

 Sometimes the kids figure stuff out on their own, and that's a beautiful thing.  We had made Artists' Trading cards, using Elements & Principles vocabulary.  Each kid in 1st and 2nd grade made two cards, and had a buddy class to swap with.  One card they kept, and the other was traded.  When they received the cards from their buddy class, a process which I kept random, some of the kids had cards that looked fabulous.  Others were not so lucky.  But in any event, I split the assignment so the classes at the beginning of the week had the word "Line" and the end of the week classes did "value."  I wanted to take the opportunity to use the cards made by the buddy class as a way to teach the other words, and some of the students began commenting on their buddy class' craftsmanship.  "My buddy REALLY took their time! I can tell!"  "Mine probably could have colored this better.  But I like the shapes."  They were being art critics!  So, picking up on this, I started asking leading questions.  The best part was, nobody used names during the discussion, so nobody had their feelings hurt, but they could still look at the work and tell something they liked, and something that could be improved. 

A lot of the fun of doing ATCs this way was getting a surprise from another kid their age.  Most of them were really happy with what their buddies made.  There were a few classes that had different numbers of kids, so when I was introducing the lesson, I saved all my examples I made and let the kids who didn't get a buddy card choose one of mine.  Of course, mine were fancy, so they didn't feel jipped.  ;)

Teacher examples on top, kid examples below.