Teaching Artist Practicum:
Placement #1: Urban Arts Academy, Preschool, Wednesday 1:00 - 4:00
Placement #2: Whittier International Elementary School, Teachers Susan Buchholz and Angela Olson, Kindergarten, Monday 12:30 - 3:00
Shadowing: Minneapolis Institute of Art, Angela Olson, No Shadowing Opportunity This Week
Urban Arts Academy - Preschool
Wednesday, February 13th 1:00 - 4:00 (3 Hours)
On Wednesday February 13th, I attended Urban Arts Academy! This week around, my experience was quite different. When I got there, I was put in a different preschool room than usual due to the lack of help and supervision. I was kind of sad because I was starting to get to know the preschoolers in room 208 really well, but it also was a good experience to be able to interact with more students and observe how things vary classroom to classroom. I started off by helping clean up in the classroom and just getting to know the new students. The head teacher began reading the class stories and after washing hands and snack time, the students had time for free choice and Valentine card making. I cut out a lot of different sized hearts and spent a lot of my time with one little girl who I noticed was sitting all alone the entire time. I asked the kids many questions about what they were drawing and who their valentines were for. One other girl asked me to draw her ninjas on her valentine, but together we discussed how we could draw one together - by drawing a person first and going from there! I notice a lot of kids ask me to draw stuff for them to do it because they “ can’t” so I like to help they find a way to do it themselves and encourage them that their art is unique and there’s no right or wrong way.
After valentine making and lots of explorative free time, the students went to the gym. There’’s one student who experiences a lot of anger when things don’t go his way, so I spent a lot of time one-on-one with him. I even read him the same book three times in a row while at the gym, I felt that he really needed that attention and time to himself, he was so sweet and really kind to me. We played ball together at one point too, every time the ball was tossed we had to name a different type of food. I supervised the rest of the kids as well and played various other gym games.
Overall, It was a very busy time and really tired me out. I learned that young kids need a lot of freedom, or at least at Urban Arts. There’s a really relaxed atmosphere and not everyone has to participate in the art activities which I think is good, so kids don’t grow up dreading art or seeing it as a tedious or dreadful activity. The arts are prevalent in many aspects of the lives of young children and their classrooms. As I work more with this age group, I’d like to focus on art that maybe is centered around identity and what makes each child special. I am not exactly sure which lesson to tackle yet, again I still need to meet more separately with the staff.
Whittier International Elementary - Kindergarten
Monday, February 11th, 12:30 - 3:00 (2.5 Hours)
On Monday, I attended another day at Whittier! When I arrived, I found that Susan was teaching that day and we caught up about last Monday when there was a substitute and she further explained some of the dynamics of the classroom, which was nice. We started out with rest time and after that it was time for quiet reading. Susan sat down all the kids and stressed the importance of sounding out words along with using pictures to try and read words. She then paired me up with one girl to read with individually and further work with those ideas. I honestly had forgotten that at one point I had to learn how to read and how difficult it is for some children. Teaching kids how to read and what letter makes what sound was really eye opening, I guess being so old I just forget how things are broken down for children so young. I think this is important to remember when teaching a young child anything. Later on, the students had to make drafts for their own part of a story. They were required to draw a picture and write an accompanying text. After they were done, I went around and wrote out their writing the correct way so they learned the correct spelling or I answered questions and helped students sound out words.
As for planning my own lesson, Susan brought forth the idea of coming up with a lesson centered around their upcoming unit ‘Celebrations’ - including such holidays as Christmas, Hanukkah, Valentine’s Day, and more. I’m so excited with this idea. I am coming up with ideas to bring to Susan and Angela. One of my ideas is using pennants in some way, because I associate them with so many celebrations and think they are just adorable design elements in general. I can’t wait to see what we come up with for this lesson, I think it will be really effective and I think there is a way to make this a great collaborative classroom effort.
Minneapolis Institute of Art - Open Studio Day Shadowing
No Shadowing Opportunity This Week
Personal Update
Thought I would include a quick follow up based on last week’s personal update and the fact that this week was Valentine’s Day! I managed to make sixty chocolate covered strawberries before heading home for the weekend, however what really excites me is a publication project that I am working on. I am making a wooden box to hold a bunch of printed material. Although it’s been really stressful, I am really excited to finish it up this week for class. I’ve attached a process pic in hopes that it intrigues some people and makes them consider the wide varieties of mediums graphic designers and artists in general can work in!
