Art Teacher Rap

Motivation to Create the Art Teacher Rap

Back in 2010, I was teaching at a low economic school, primarily minority, with 95% of the population on free and reduced lunch. If you have taught in a similar situation, you know the challenges these students face, and how difficult it can be to get them on level.

My desire to meet my students where they were on a cultural level was a big part of my inspiration to create an art teacher rap. The other fantastic thing about raps is the repetitive, rhythmic nature that helps with memorization.

And finally, I wanted to connect with my students. I wanted them to see me in a fun way where I wasn’t taking myself too seriously.

How it All Began

At the end of June that year I went to a two-day training on using video/iMovie and GarageBand in the art classroom. As a parting gift for giving up two full days of our summer vacation the participants received a flip cam, mic headset, and a high-end tripod. Thank you school district!

I didn’t want to waste any time and know how we all get too busy to do much extra during the school year. I started thinking about how I could use my new toys…I mean tools. I decided to create a video as part of the introduction to a lesson.

Creating the Art Lesson

I’d wanted to think of better ways to teach my at risk/high poverty students information for retention. At the time I was so focused on the affect side of art that I had gotten away from emphasizing some terminology. (In my defense, for some students, art was the only reason they came to school. I wanted them to have a really positive experience)

For example, in a lesson, I may have focused on the foreground, middle ground, background while demonstrating an artwork, but would glaze over the vocab in the color mixing.

Well, I decided to get back to the foundation and focus on vocabulary lessons—in this case, primary colors. To present it in a fun way I created an art teacher rap.

First I thought up the words, then created the music in GarageBand, and finally edited a video in iMovie. The whole process took a couple of days, and I even had time for a leisurely swim in the pool. I also got some quality TV watching done while I edited.

The Final Product

I showed the primary colors art teacher rap to my Kindergarten and First Grade students as a motivation piece at the beginning of for each day of a painting lesson. The kids went crazy. And the following year my second grades requested to see it again.

Please feel free to use it in your own art classroom or home lesson. And if you like the primary colors art teacher rap you can go find the followup video the secondary colors art teacher rap on my YouTube page.