Creative Clip art
Where can you find the best clip art?
By Noelle Vilella
Classroom Clipart is a great free source for clip art, pictures, and illustrations. The site currently has 42, 227 images that are broken up into 1,050 categories. Classroom Clipart also has links to animated clip art. The categories make it easy to find exactly what you are looking for. For $19.95 a year you can become a member and gain access to additional clips. This is a very user friendly site.
I think that the animated clips can really add some fun to documents. Using the Animated clips category and the Animals subcategory I found the clip below of the Tortoise and the Hare. I could use this clip in a computer activity with my students when we talk about fables.
Google Images has a great selection of clip art. Most of them are photographs. It has an Advanced Image Search where you can narrow your search by selecting the specific size, file type, and color of the image you are looking for. Google Images also gives you the location of the website that the images came from.
My 3rd graders are currently working on a Native American unit in Social Studies so I searched "Native Americans" using Google Images. This search resulted in about 32,700 images, including the one below
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Microsoft's Digital Graphics Library
http://office.microsoft.com/clipart/default.aspx?lc=en-us
Microsoft's Digital Graphics Library has a wide variety of clip art. The first thing that I noticed was how current the clips are. Many clips seem to be very modern and trendy. This site has a lot of categories to choose from. Microsoft's selection includes both illustrations and photographs. The downloading process was a little different, but it was still fairly easy to follow.
Here are is an example of a current, trendy clip on Microsoft's Digital Graphics Library.
#1 Free Clip Art is a site that has over 10,000 clips separated into over 300 categories. This site mainly has very colorful illustrations. This would not be a good place to find photographs or animated clips. This site is easy to navigate, but the advertisements make your search move a little slower.
The clip below could be used on a science worksheet when students are investigating with hand lenses.
http://www.awesomeclipartforeducators.com
Awesome Clipart for Educators is a great site for school related clip art. There are great clips on here that could be used in newsletters and on assignments. This site also has a great feature where you can make your own puzzles and worksheets. Coloring pages are also available to print out.
I could use the clip below on a newsletter or a memo home reminding students of supplies that they need.
http://www.clipart.co.uk/index.shtml
Clip Art Warehouse is a little different than some of the others. It is not as user friendly, but if you spend some time searching you can find some neat clips. This site offers backgrounds, animated clips, icons, and 3D icons. Some of the clips on here would definitely catch some attention.
My students are currently working on a reading unit titled Country Life. We have read a lot of stories about life on farms and raising animals. I thought the clip below would be perfect for this unit.
