Urban Arts- Katie - 2.5 hours
This Wednesday was a super fun class as usual! Urban Arts Academy always encourages each class to have artists of the month, and our artist for march is Yayoi Kusama. I totally adore her work, and the bright colors so I'm thrilled to be around to make work inspired by work.
Katie had planned a fun bubble printing activity for the class, which she had also conduced with them the previous day but some students had not completed it so she was planned to do it again. The students could mix one color ink, with a little soap and with the help of a straw blow into the cup which formed bubbles. They then could use a paper to print the pattern formed by the bubbles. Which related back to the artist of the month as the bubbles formed a polka dot pattern. As some of the students had already completed the activity Katie had bought in some recycled tires that they could repaint- as she plans to make an installation with the class. These days since the students aren't very inclined towards the art activity she tells them that they can go to the gym to play if everyone participates in at least one art activity. This works really well as they get to play and make art.
The bubble printing activity was a lot of fun, and also pretty messy. Soon the bubble printing activity turned into bubble making activity, which then turned into 'who can make the biggest bubble'. It was such a delight to see such big smiles because of the joys of blowing bubble. The energy in the class was so happy!
I noticed something in class this week which has really made me think about the education system these days. One of the student in our class, seems always worried about homework. He participates in the activities but doesn't fully participate while the students are playing games and stuff because he is wanting to do his homework. Katie or I help him with his homework, but he gets really worried when he doesn't complete it by the time he gets picked up. This makes me question our education system, do kindergarten kids have to start worrying about homework at this early age? Isn't this going to be the cause of worry for next 20 years to come? How can we help taking away this burden of homework from such young age?
M.I.A- Krista- 2 hours
Following the meeting I had with Krista where we talked about planning for May day events, and my roll in it, we discussed about ways to promote the event. One of the things I suggested was making fliers and posters with all the community event details. Krista emailed me with different logos like the M.I.A logo and the Minneapolis Parks and recreation board. I worked on the poster considering the fact that its going to be hanging at different parks, should attract a wide age group etc. It was a great learning experience and I'm excited to be a part of this project from the scratch. Krista said the poster I made might be translated to Spanish too, which I'm excited about to see the design translate into a different language.