In my SmartBoard ® , I created an entire lesson on Van Gogh that started with a photograph of him as a child. This approach has always helped me out to achieve a higher level of connections with my students, as they start off by understanding that all these famous artists were also, at certain point, just children like the ones we have in our classrooms today. Van Gogh's life captivated my classes, to say the least. Both rigorous and relevant to my students, the theme took us more than one class session to complete. Learning about the artist and understanding his unique style made up for lots of content and concepts to go through, while having the students choose their own favorite colors and designs for their vases and backgrounds added relevancy to the entire project.