Urban Arts Academy- 4.5 hours

 

This week I went to Urban Arts Academy! I was very excited to be back, after not being there for two weeks. It was a full day—when I got there, I helped Katie prepare materials for the week and we discussed ideas for my lesson. I asked her if she had any preference on what we should do—she said she was very open. We discussed projects the students were more engaged with. Katie showed me accordion books they have been working on recently, she told me that a lot of the students were very excited about them. She also mentioned that many of the students had some history with working with printmaking techniques, and that those engaged them well also. I am working on a lesson plan that incorporates simple relief printing techniques and bookmaking.

The students were very energetic this week; Monday was extremely rainy. We took the first group outside for their recess and there were a lot of injuries! All, of course, minor—but it allowed me to carefully observe and help calm a child down when they get hurt. It was a lot more difficult to get the students to listen this week, probably from being inside most of the day based on the rain. They didn’t want to leave the gym, or go inside, or even listen to directions. Katie handled the situation very well, when we were trying to go to the gym, many of the students were very excited, but so excited that they were not paying attention. She waited the situation out, asking the students to sit down and wait, when certain students were not paying attention, she told them they couldn’t go to the gym until they all sat down. Many of them responded to this and eventually, a few of them were still extremely excitable, but she eventually convinced them to line up and calm down.

The students were working on making three dimensional park models this week. They were very engaged with this project—it was a sculptural technique that didn’t involve clay or paper mache, things I assume many of them are exposed to quite often.

I will be meeting with Krista and the artist she is working with next week!