No name artwork...grrrrr...

Artwork without names quickly became a pet peeve of mine my first year teaching.  No matter how many times (or in how many ways) I asked/told/begged/demanded(!) that names be put on artwork there were always several unidentifiable papers collected at the end of Art class.  This turned the beginning of class on day 2 of a project into a zoo, made publishing to Artsonia impossible, and caused chaos on portfolio packing days!  I started putting "no namers" on the carpet in the front of the art room for kids to claim as I passed out projects.  This made the room a (bigger) mess and the kids never remembered where to look if their project was not passed back to them.  My solution?  A little rhyme I heard somewhere years ago...

Don't be a toad, write your name and class code!*

Now I have this guy hanging out on the drying rack:

And anyone who encounters a no namer puts the paper in the "Toad Box" that some of my second grade after school helpers made last year:

Now everyone knows where to look and the papers of the guilty parties are contained!  Thankfully, there are fewer and fewer no namers (probably because no one wants to be in the toad box! ha!)!

*Class codes have also been a giant time/sanity saver for me...they make sorting projects a piece of cake (which I appreciate SO MUCH while emptying the drying rack!)!  The class codes are the grade level and first letter of their homeroom teacher's name (so KD for Ms. Dauer's Kindergarten class, 5L for Mr. Lindstrom's fifth grade class).