Blick Art Room Aid Makes Helping Your Favorite Art Teacher Easy!

As many of you know, I used to be a classroom teacher. I loved my job.  I loved spending my day with kids which, let’s be honest, can often be a lot more pleasant than spending it with grown-ups.  I loved watching them understand something for the first time. I loved when they asked me questions that made me look at something a new way. I often learned as much from them as they did from me.

What I did not love was often being without all of the tools to teach the lessons I wanted in ways that would match their specific learning styles, or grab their interest, or make a lasting impression.  I did the best I could with what I had and I didn’t grumble (well, not too much anyways).  But I always had a voice in the back of my mind that asked how much more might they achieve if having the tools I needed wasn’t an issue.

No group of teachers fight this battle more than Art teachers.  Art, by its nature, is a subject that is very supply-intensive.  Imagine taking an art class with no supplies at all – you would have to spend all of your time looking at art in books or on slides and never have the chance to try your own hand at creating something magical. (Wait, I think I took that class once. It was called “Art Appreciation” and I HATED it!!)

Blick Art Materials, a company that provides art supplies to schools, understands that a good art lesson requires hands on supplies for kids to use.  They have come up with a great way for teachers to let folks know what they need.  Blick Art Materials has created Art Room Aid which is a place for art teachers to create a wish list for specific projects.  The process is amazingly simple!  Teachers register for an account, describe the project they would like to fund, and choose which supplies they need. Once the list is published, anyone can go to the list and help the teacher acquire the needed supplies either by donating a monetary credit to Blick or by purchasing the item(s) and gifting them to the teacher.  You can see some examples of projects looking for funding here.

Just in case you need to be sold on the importance of art education, here is an infographic created from the results of a survey of 500 artists.

This post was written in partnership with Blick Art Materials and The Motherhood. All opinions expressed are my own.