The classroom has six long tables. Each table has a name, which is a vocabulary word. This year’s table names were Line, Space, Color, Pattern, Texture, and Dimension. These were also the topics of our major units. Each table has four large dots on it; red, blue, green, and orange. Each dot indicates one person’s area on the table. When students enter the art room, they go to their spot, which is always the same. Every class period, each color of dot has a specific job. The jobs include Art Handler, Kit Keeper, Supplies, and Clean Up. There is a poster on the wall, which indicates what job each color has for the day. Every week the jobs are rotated.

The Art Handler gets out the unfinished works of art at the beginning of class, and collects all of the artwork from the table at the end of class. The Art Handler must use extreme caution when handling other peoples’ art. The Kit Keeper gets a “kit” for their table. Each kit has general art supplies; scissors crayons, markers, colored pencils, glue, rulers, pencils, and erasers. The Kit Keeper is also responsible for putting everything neatly back into the kit at the end of the class, and returning it, with all of its original contents, to the storage shelf. The Supplies person is in charge of getting specialized supplies for everyone at the table.  These are the people who will come and collect the supplies once the teacher is finished giving directions. Also, the Supplies person is the Special Listener for the table. They are responsible for listening extra carefully to the instructions, so that if someone at the table has a simple question or forgot some directions later, they will be able to answer it for them instead of asking the teacher for everything. While everyone is responsible for cleaning up, the Clean Up person is responsible for any special cleaning jobs, such as washing brushes or plates, or spraying the table with cleaner for the other students to wipe up.

Before the students line up to leave, they must be able to answer “yes’ to four questions: Did you clean up your project? Did you clean up your table? Did you clean up the floor around your table? Did you assist any table that is not clean? Once all of these things have been accomplished, the students may line up to leave. This management system was designed not only to facilitate art instruction, but to also encourage students to develop a sense of community as well as skills of self-regulation.