34 Peer-Recommended Online Resources for Visual Arts Teachers

New Jersey Alternate Route candidates specializing in Visual Arts Education recently recommended free web resources that they’ve consulted when preparing lessons and engaging, relevant activities for students. Their suggested resources are a part of our blog series featuring go-to-Websites, blogs, and other online teaching and reference materials for helping our state’s youth achieve the NJ Student Learning Standards. More than 300 teachers participated in this professional swap and share, with many contributing lesser-known resources that even seasoned educators will be excited to discover.  Read why Visual Arts educators love the resources they recommend.  

Annenberg Learner

"Provides excellent videos about art history and social studies with specific themes listed."
-Gillian F., Grades K-8

Art 21

"Digestible informative videos about contemporary artists and movements, specific educator section with articles by teachers, educator library, PDFs of educator guides for videos, prompts for teachers, and lots more."
-Olivia D., Grades 9-12

"Biographies and longer videos about contemporary artists and art centers."
-Shushana R., Grades 9-12

"Art21.org is a fantastic resource because it offers information for artists, and they have an entire section dedicated to educators. They provide instruction on how to incorporate modern art and artists into lessons depending on grade level and they host free online sessions with different people from the arts community - primarily artists but also educators, curators, nonprofit directors and so forth. I find their mission noble and the way they deliver the information very engaging."
-Daniel V., Grades 9-12

Art Ed Guru

"This website is comprehensive, giving ideas for general classroom management and teaching in addition to specific art lessons, sub plans and free professional development materials."
-Vanessa N., Grades 9-12

Art Factory

"This site has a plethora of art lessons that are cross-curricular, engaging, art historical and educational. They have lessons that incorporate different art movements and their ideas for projects, work schemes and lessons plans are very well organized by simple and clear themes for a variety of age groups."
-Alexis I., Grades K-5

"This website provides visual arts lesson plans and activities for all students. It also provides graduate courses for teachers."
-Milahn C., Grades K-12

"This site is specific for art educators. They offer graduate courses, conferences, and workshops.  The site also has lesson planning information and video guides for various techniques. Educators can learn from guest lecturers that are top in the field of art education. The Art of Ed also has a wonderful podcast that I enjoy listening to as I commute. I find ideas there that inspire me in my classroom, and they have resources through the site that can help me plan to implement the lessons."
-Erin D., Grades K-5

"Classes, teaching materials, artist bios, lessons, videos and assessments."
-Carinne S., Grades K-5

Art Pedagogy

"This site has an abundance of art lessons that are organized by different art concepts that students must master in order to become the most successful artists that they can be. The lessons are grouped into overarching ideas essential to art such as mark-making, the elements, the principles, etc. It breaks each of these down into simple and clear terms that an art teacher can easily use in their classroom."
-Alexis I., Grades K-5
 

Art with Mrs. Nguyen

"Blog, lessons, classroom management ideas, resources and room décor."
-Carinne S., Grades K-5
 

Arts Ed NJ

"The site is constantly updating with class resources and changes to the curriculum such as SEL."
-Darlene A., Grades K-5
 

Cassie Stephens Blog 

"Cassie Stephens has been an elementary art teacher for over 20 years. She has great ideas for projects, classroom set-up, and overall good advice on being an art educator."
-Michelle M., Grades K-5

"This is a great resource for visual art teachers. There is information ranging from class management to teaching methods."
-Darlene A., Grades K-5
 

Clayflicks

"Watch and learn from great instructional and inspirational clay videos about new techniques and interesting ceramic ideas."
-Alicia C., Grades 9-12

Crayola Education

"Crayola has great lesson resources, drawing and coloring pages, video tutorials for adults and children, a vast and every changing supply of new materials for students to explore and a really helpful parent resource section that helps engage learning with families at home. This is always the first resource I recommend to parents or other teachers that need some quick or easy to implement art lessons for classroom or home."
-Erin D., Grades K-5
 

Deep Space Sparkle

"This site is great if your district does not supply you with a curriculum or if you are the only art educator in your school."
-Shannon B., Grades 6-8

"This site is used by art teachers all over as a resource for lessons, art teaching advice, and professional development. It is for grades K-6, but I find it fun, inspirational and a site with a certain sense of community. Sometimes there may only be 1 art teacher in a school so this is a site where you can "be among your people."
-Alicia C., Grades 9-12

"Easy to navigate website full of fun Art lessons. Lessons are broken out into age groups and are good to use as a starting point or as is. The site also offers other curriculum and art teacher related tips/tricks."
-Mary W., Grades K-8

Design Museum

"Free, contemporary, provides essential questions, lesson plans and objectives for all exhibitions."
-Olivia J., Grades K-8
 

Educational Learning and Mobile Learning

"This is a great way to find ways to educate using technology such as apps, internet, creative programs, digital books, etc. With the pandemic, quarantining and recent virtual learning, technology is a viable and realistic tool and can benefit just about any teacher."
-Tyler C., Grades K-5
 

Edutopia

"Resources to help create activities and teaching aids to support your lesson plans and instruction. It also helps support assessment, social and emotional learning, professional learning, technology integration and many other areas of teaching and development for all educators."
-Tyler C., Grades K-5

Google Arts and Culture

"Free, immersive, fun, shares every time period and artist, historical and contemporary."
-Olivia J., Grades K-8

"This site has many unique and interesting search tools designed for viewing, collecting, cataloging, and analyzing artwork. Along with images of famous works of visual arts, crafts, media arts, and material culture, the site has informative context and background information."
-Olivia W., Grades 6-8

Incredible Art Department

"I like this site as a go to for lesson plan ideas. This site offers creative project ideas for all grades. The other thing I like is that all the lesson plans correlate with the element and principles, so you can find an activity for every principle for every grade."
-Sabrina P., Grades 6-12

Kahoot

"Kahoot is an online game-based learning platform. In Kahoot you can host live or organized interactive games for your students. There are several different games and options to choose from to get your students excited about learning."
-Joshua D., Grades K-8

Kleki

"I work in a district where students may not have the benefit of certain art supplies at home.  And so, this allows me to give students a chance to create artwork digitally while also keeping in touch with the constantly growing digital world."
-Rustam G., Grades K-5 

MetKids

"These videos bring the students into the New York Metropolitan Museum. These videos show different aged students at the museum, talking to different museum specialists, while kids interview the specialists. It is easy for the students to relate to other kids in the video."
-Mary W., Grades K-8
 

National Art Education Association

"This website provides a tremendous amount of educational resources for visual arts education with a focus on leveraging art to help young people realize their potential and promote global understanding."
-Milahn C., Grades K-12 
 

Nearpod

"It is an interactive slideshow lesson. The students can draw, respond to poll questions, post notes or images on collaborative tasks, and take multiple-choice quizzes."
-Joshua D., Grades K-8

New York Times 

"This page of the NY Times is set up specifically for students to engage with a photograph selected each week. Students interpret the photograph; they can contribute to the comments section on the website and then once a week the context of the previous week's photo is revealed, which is an opportunity for a second round of discussion or analysis. It promotes analytical thinking, use of descriptive language while also reinforcing literacy skills. The activity of analyzing and interpreting engages higher-order thinking skills. It also confirms the students’ interpretations as valuable and highlights the possibility of many interpretations. There is no right answer until the meaning and context is revealed. I think it's an interesting way to engage in a discussion with other students as other people respond to the same image."
-Vanessa N., Grades 9-12
 

PBS Teachers 

"This app is awesome and free. It contains everything you need. I was really amazed by the Art content. Being an Art teacher, of course, the site definitely piqued my interest. The graphics are excellent and easy to navigate. I guess I shouldn't expect anything less from PBS."
-Ray K., Grades 6-8
 

PixilArt

"PixilArt offers a new approach to creating drawings/paintings and allows students to create their own cartoon/gifs."
-Rustam G., Grades K-5

Quick Draw Google

"Quick Draw is like Pictionary where you play against an Artificial Intelligence opponent. Our classes use this as an early finisher activity, or we will use it for a small competition."
-Allison W., Grades K-5
 

Scholastic Art

"Scholastic Art’s website is an extension of their educational magazine and has great content, including articles, quizzes, worksheets, and more."
-Olivia D., Grades 9-12
 

Smart History

"Awesome resources for art history, professional short videos, great ideas for in-class discussions and projects."
-Shushana R., Grades 9-12

Study.com

"This is an excellent resource for study material, lessons and different formats of providing assessments for your students."
-Ray K., Grades 6-8

"I first came across study.com when I was reviewing for my praxis exam earlier this year. I tried several other methods, like traditional textbooks and even other websites, and was very disappointed. study.com uses all videos with narration to help keep the viewer actively engaged and the passion of the teachers comes through in the presentations. Most of them are actually funny as well, which is always a plus. I was pleased to discover they have a full range of support material including lesson plans and teaching strategies. The only downside of the website is that it is expensive at $30 per month so I subscribe to it infrequently and only when I’m really stuck."
-Daniel V., Grades 9-12
 

Tate Kids

"Tate Kids is great because it has many different art videos for children that explain complex art ideas, terms, and movements using language they can understand. The kids in my classes love them and find them humorous as well."
-Michelle M., Grades K-5

"This site has an extraordinarily useful art terms hyperlink directory, with supporting visual examples from art history and lengthy articles on each bit of art world terminology. The research could truly expand into infinity on this site with so many hyperlinks for additional information, and the articles are as useful and digestible as they are detailed and to the point."
-Olivia W., Grades 6-8

"This website has fun quizzes, games and short articles on famous artists, art movements, and art techniques."
-Allison W., Grades K-5

Teacher Toolkit

"Although it's not quite as flashy as PBS Teachers, this app has a lot to share as well. It's basically everything you need pertaining to classroom management, Do Nows or Opening Activities, Checking for Understanding, Group Practice, Independent Practice, Reading Strategies, Games, and Closing Activities. It provides you with everything you need to aid you in your mission to address the standards using instructional strategies to get the job done."
-Ray K., Grades 6-8 

Teachers Pay Teachers

"This site is so great for substitute plans. Everything is complete, the plan, the worksheets, even rubrics, and the lesson are pretty affordable. I typically find lessons and pay less than 5-10 dollars for the whole thing."
-Sabrina P., Grades 6-12
 

Transforming a School Through Arts Integration 
 
"Arts integration builds greater understanding across disciplines, supporting authentic experiences that engage and motivate learners. This practice provides multiple modes of learning and understanding, while also fostering imagination, creativity and personal interpretation of ideas and topics."
-Jennifer B., Grades 6-8
 

What Works Clearinghouse

"Provides existing research on different programs, products, practices, and policies in education such as Children with Disabilities."
-Gillian F., Grades K-8

YouTube - Art History for Middle School Students

"YouTube is an excellent resource for instruction in any subject. In Art, it's great for discussing Art History as well as for viewing step-by-step videos geared toward helping the learner create their own art. It's great for visual and auditory learners."
-Ray K., Grades 6-8
 

If you’re considering following your dream of teaching, Rutgers Alternate Route can offer you the support and training you need to succeed. Be sure to follow Rutgers Alternate Route on Twitter and sign up for Alternate Route’s monthly newsletter for more information and stories from the field of education.