I’m Patty Palmer, an art teacher and founder of Deep Space Sparkle and The Sparklers’ Club.
When I opened The Sparklers’ Club for the very first time in 2016, my goal was simple: to support art teachers with vibrant, rigorous art lessons — so they could stop worrying about planning and bring more creative energy to the classroom.
Since then, The Sparklers’ Club has not only become a trusted home for art education but a gathering place for art teachers to help and support one another. I’m thankful to be surrounded by the brilliant teachers in our community, from the lesson designers at Team Sparkle to the Sparklers’ who bring us fresh perspectives and inspiration every single day.
Heather lives in coastal Georgia, where she spends her days creating art lessons, workshops and trainings designed to help art teachers feel confident, inspired and supported in the classroom.
Before joining the Deep Space Sparkle Creative Team seven years ago, she taught K–5 art in Title I schools for 12 years after earning her BFA in Art Education from Bowling Green State University.
She’s happiest with a watercolor brush in hand, and when she’s not dreaming up new lessons, you’ll probably find her enjoying an evening beach picnic on Jekyll Island with her family.
Amy has been creating curriculums and resources on the Deep Space Sparkle Creative Team since 2018, helping art teachers simplify lesson planning and build engaging art programs with confidence. Before joining DSS, she taught K–5 art in both the United States and Senegal, West Africa and spent several years substitute teaching, giving her a special appreciation for resources that support teachers wherever they are.
With a Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction and a bachelor’s degree in Art, Amy especially loves introducing students to the magic of printmaking. Outside of work, she enjoys reading aloud with her kids, snacking on chips and salsa and getting together with friends for a game of mahjong.
Mabre has been creating lessons and resources with the Deep Space Sparkle Creative Team since 2020, helping art teachers feel supported, spark creativity and make the most of every art room moment.Before joining DSS, she spent nine years teaching art in public schools, including traveling between four different campuses (cart, portable, classroom… she’s done it all!).
A lifelong maker with degrees in Creative Writing and Studio Art, she’ll happily explore just about any creative medium, though ceramics will always have her heart.When she’s not creating, she’s a proud soccer mom who loves snuggling with her dogs and escaping the Arizona heat to explore the mountains and rivers of southwest Colorado with her family.
The Sparklers’ Club is created for art teachers, by art teachers, and it’s important to us to have the voices of our members and their unique perspectives shaping what we create. We are grateful to our 2026-2027 Sparklers’ Advisory Board for lending their time and expertise to help make the magic happen.
K-8 Art Educator // Charter School // New Jersey
Working in a dual-language Spanish program, Alejandra regularly adapts lessons to help her students with their language acquisition. She’s no stranger to flexing lessons up and down to meet her students where they’re at in terms of interests, grade-levels, and range of abilities. With over a decade of experience teaching, she’s passionate about scaffolding lessons to make them more equitable and accessible for all of her 450 students.
Use Deep Space Sparkle as a framework, not a script. It’s an excellent foundation for individual lessons or even an entire curriculum, with endless ideas that you can expand, adapt, scaffold, and translate to fit your students, teaching style, and community.
K-6 Art Educator // Public School // California
Arielle is especially passionate about curriculum design and making an effort to incorporate diverse artists and movements, techniques, and materials into a well-rounded elementary art education. She initially joined the Sparklers’ Club during an especially overwhelming art show in her first year of teaching. Since then, Arielle has become a master of changing budgets, shared spaces, and inspiring over 1,000 students across multiple campuses.
Don’t feel like the end product has to match the example. Sometimes you have to combine elements of projects, sometimes the kids go in a crazy direction with it and sometimes it just doesn’t work, but either way they (and you) are probably learning something!
K-4 Art Educator // Charter School // Georgia
Ashley has a knack for connecting ideas across subjects. Focused on deeper learning, she helps her students explore concepts from math, science, and ELA through their artmaking. She loves weaving in diverse sources of information, making thoughtful adaptations for students with special needs, and highlighting different cultures through her lessons.
Don’t get overwhelmed or super choosy. I would choose one whole bundle you’d like to teach and then just do all the grades. EPIC and EASE are a great way to start the program until you get used to the system. Also I have found that it takes an extra day to finish all the lessons. So if it’s a 2 day lesson… I know it’s really going to be 3 for my classes.
Seasonal bundles, the Fluorescent Bundle, and Cozy Critters Bundle
K-12 Art Educator // Public School // Missouri
With over 22 years of experience in K-12 education, including 8 years in the art room, Cassie loves to mentor other teachers and chairs her district’s Professional Development Committee. She holds a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction, and used the EPIC curriculum to build a K-8 scope and sequence while developing higher-level coursework for Art I, Drawing, Painting, and Printmaking. Cassie credits TSC with supporting her transition into art education and contributing to her recognition as one of Missouri’s 35 regional Teachers of the Year.
Don’t be afraid to play the lesson videos for your classes. At the beginning, I felt I had to do all the demonstrations. The videos felt like I was cheating… Then I started to use the videos as the starting point for my students, and my demonstrations were for using tools or modifications or variations the students could do. I have several classes where this actually helped with behavior problems as I was able to roam the room during the videos. I also don’t show all of the videos, just the parts that make it easier for my classroom to function.
Pre-K-5 Art Educator // Public School // Oklahoma
In addition to her students, Danielle is passionate about helping other art teachers, and she loves finding ways to work collaboratively within her community. In her first year of teaching, she used the GAP curriculum and says it became the theme of her first art show and helped her feel confident as a teacher. She runs the art-teacher TikTok account danibeth.creates to share ideas, achievable projects, and creative opportunities with educators.
Start with the EASE curriculum because it allows you to get to know the lesson plan layout, the art supplies, and kids LOVE learning about the natural world!
Kindergarten General Educator // Public School // Oregon
Heather is an ESOL Kindergarten teacher who brings art into her general-education classroom. With 31 years of experience working with young learners, she’s passionate about helping students develop a lifelong love of creating. Her lessons weave together vocabulary support for multilingual learners, fine-motor skill development, and a whole lot of creativity, all while making the most of limited instructional time.
Pace yourself! There are so many great resources, you don’t have to do all of them right away!
K-5 & SpEd Art Educator // Public School // California
Ijeoma spent 13 years in general education before moving into a part-time position that fulfilled her long-held dream of teaching art. During her first year in the art room, she relied on lessons from the Sparklers’ Club and the EASE curriculum before discovering the GAP curriculum. GAP especially resonates with her because she values both strong organization and expanding the representation of artists across genders and geographic regions. She’s excited to help shape resources for art teachers.
Keep it simple to start!
Pre K-8 Art Educator // Private School // Ohio
Having taught art for three years, Katie credits The Sparklers’ Club with helping her gain the confidence and direction to make the leap from her prior career in interior design. She’s built a rotating 6th and 7th grade curriculum using artist bundles, while adapting lessons for students of varied abilities. In Katie’s own words, “I absolutely love what I do and I’m so glad I took this leap! I love to see the creativity of my students and boost their confidence.
Take time exploring all the resources available to you through the Sparklers’ Club and try to have a rough outline of what curriculum and other bundles you’d like to use throughout the year, but be flexible because projects always take longer than you think they will!
K-8 Art Educator // Public School // Ohio
Lisa’s path to art education began with 17 years in commercial interior design, a background that now fuels her love of interweaving art with engineering design and project-based learning. Now eight years into her art teaching career, Lisa brings that same interdisciplinary lens to the Sparklers’ Advisory Board, drawing on expertise in STEAM integration, PBL, special education, and cross-curricular planning, expertise she’s already put to work helping her school earn its STEM and STEAM designations using cross-curricular resources from the Sparklers’ Club.
Choose one of the full Curriculum bundles and go for it!
K-8 General Educator & Librarian // Private School // Washington
Four years ago, Melissa built her school’s art program from the ground up with help from the EPIC Curriculum. Now, in addition to being her school’s school librarian, Melissa teaches art for PreK-5 from a highly organized cart and teaches middle school in the library. With this unique lens, she has a knack for recommending current, culturally responsive books that connect to her art lessons. Melissa says that she values collaboration beyond her own building and sees the Sparklers’ Advisory Board as a way to improve an already useful resource.
Organization is key and clear, labeled bins will save you so much time.
1, 3, 5 & 7th Grades // Homeschooler // Maryland
Miral homeschools her four children, in grades 1, 3, 5, and 7. Bringing a resourceful, self-taught approach to art instruction, she has spent more than three years using the Sparklers’ Club to weave art through science class, social studies, and across multiple age levels. Miral sees art as an essential way to help her children understand complex ideas and build foundational skills.
Do not hesitate/ underestimate a K lesson for all age groups- older children will improvise and older children with weaker foundation will immensely benefit.
Pre-K-8 Art Educator // Private School // Maryland
Coming from a background in business administration and economics, Sharon initially found her path into teaching art though a volunteer position at her daughter’s school. Since that time, she has accumulated over 22 years of teaching experience while remaining committed to continuous learning. She relies on TSC to teach and revisit foundational skills while adapting its resources to fit her students’ needs.
Don’t get overwhelmed with all of the bundles, pick one to start with and always feel free to adjust the lessons to fit your needs and the needs of your students. New teachers the lessons will give you step by step instructions to create amazing projects; veteran teachers, the lessons have plenty of freedom to make them your own. Use the lessons to create the Art program that YOU want.