Studio Thinking from the Start: The K–8 Art Educator’s Handbook

I’m a elementary and middle school art teacher who has always tried to have a lot of choice, but struggled with how to provide skills and help students to grow within a choice framework. This is everything I’ve been wanting but wasn’t sure how to do. Concrete examples, simple and direct, one of the best books I’ve ever read about education.

This book came highly recommended and I was excited to read it. It didn't live up to my expectations.1. The printing is slipshod. There's a line missing on every odd-numbered page for the first 49 pages. You can guess what they'd say, but still, that's irritating in a $30 book. The "posters" are just large illustrations at the end of the book, and are in black and white, not color as advertised. (This makes me wonder whether it's been pirated. I ordered it straight from Amazon.)2. The language is textbook English. It's ponderous, abstract, polysyllabic Latinized writing ("the activities will enrich her students' conversations about their work, provide broader context for whole-class gallery walks, and help students see how artmaking is developing their thinking") and every little thing (e.g., that the Post-It was invented by accident) gets an in-text citation. This is a college textbook, not an art teacher's collection of exciting teaching ideas. It reads accordingly.3. The list of habits is great. But you can get that by reading the front cover. There are some worthwhile ideas inside of how to use it (e.g., set up a station for each of the habits; formulate rubrics around them; post "I Can..." statements for each one). I don't think there's much here that an experienced teacher hasn't seen already. (Exit tickets! Detailed feedback instead of generic praise!)It's not a bad book. But it's not amazing.

I love this book with lots of ideas to add a a little or a lot of choice, with real examples! Great for elementary art teachers who want to move towards a choice based, student lead art studio!

Skimmed in an hour. Will definitely use a lot of the strategies and ideas I found in the book.

Great information. Easy to read, understand and implement in the Art room!

Perfect condition- just what Ineeded for class. Got it fast.

5 stars

I have been teaching elementary art for 25 years, 16 of which have been using the Teaching for Artistic Behavior philosophy. I love to read any book that will give me insight and application of different ideas for my classroom. I have read the original Studio Thinking book and was very excited to see this book come out. This book is amazingly dense with practical and useful information. From the start, this book offers veteran and novice teachers practical suggestions and information that can be implemented as a hole or in small doses throughout the year. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to go beyond traditional art lessons and develop the habits necessary to be critical learners.

Arrived on time, as expected