Krokotak

Krokotak is a brand new art site I discovered this year. What has really drawn me towards this particular site is the quality and uniqueness of art activities available. In fact I have already done a handful of art projects from this site in my class. Such as: “New and Easier way to make a paper pumpkin”, Pop Up Snowflakes, to Sweep the Leaves, Best Autumn Hairstyles and Autumn Mosaic. So far what I have liked about the art I have done from this site is they are simple, low resource and take usually about 2 classes to complete. Almost all projects come with a You Tube guide as well. To me this is invaluable when it comes to demonstrating how to do a an art project, especially if it is a new style or medium for the students. It helps reduce lesson planning time and as always it is excellent for the students to watch before beginning their art project.

This resource is well organized with a top menu to help you narrow down your search and an active bottom feed  with current added art projects and activities. This is an extremely important feature for me personally. With the Pinterest style bottom feed with clear pictures if I just feel like browsing current art ideas, it is simple and easy to do and you can see exactly what is there. The top menu bar I have found to be quite good in its organization. If you like your art to follow the seasons then this site is definitely for you, as you will find that option in the menu bar at the top, among other categories as well. When I am evaluating a resource one key factor I am always looking for is the organization and the ease of being able to navigate around an educational resource. For me it is extremely important to be able to look for resources and easily go back to things that I liked previously without getting lost or trying to figure out where it was on the site. Often times I have come across many educational pages that do offer great resources, however, many are poorly organized and as a result end up costing me more time in the the end than a site that may contain less resources and much more organized. This is exactly why I like Krokotak in particular. An art site can easily get overwhelmed with adding new content everyday but can become extremely difficulty to find it again. This site to me has done a good job at providing a “live feed” of new content, while at the same time providing a menu part to search up specific types of art.

While this site is very new to me and I still have a lot more to explore and certainly try out this is another great addition to an art teachers resources, especially if you are like me and are not the most creative person in the world and need a place to find great ideas for classroom projects/activities. When picking activities from this site make sure you do this at least a day or two in advance as you will certainly need some time to round up a few additional materials that you might not normally keep in your art supplies. However, as most other sites offer, Krokotak has a decent amount of quick printable worksheets and colouring sheets as well when you are in a pinch.

Overall this site has certainly become one of me new favourite discoveries and has complimented my art class with many of the activities I have already completed. What should be stated a bit more in-depth is that this activities I find to be quite dynamic and encourage students to think outside the box when thinking about art materials or simply how to use art materials. The best example I have is the “Best Autumn Hairstyle” project we did, which can be found the under the seasonal menu bar under Autumn. Not only does it help the students think about art differently it has also helped me think about art differently as well and the materials in the classroom and how you can take simple materials and create something beyond what you may have thought you could have done.

LINK: http://krokotak.com/

Site Break Down:

PROS:

• no membership
• variety of art projects of all levels
• new content
• well organized

CONS:

• some projects take longer than they look not time frame provided usually

OVERALL RATINGS:

Membership: 5/5

• free

Easy to Navigate: 5/5

• site is well organized and easy to understand
• good top menu part to search specific projects

Site usefulness: 5/5

• very useful for lower grades to upper elementary

Prep needed for Materials: 5/5

• majority of activities are low prep and materials already exist in the classroom setting
• some projects do need more materials

Active Webpage: 5/5

• very active
• always adding new content and relevant content as well

Overall:  5/ 5