Art Makes Us Smart! - Exploring the Artist in Every Student

My Students

By the end of the school year, I hope that all of my students have experienced working with such a large variety of art mediums and processes that they each identify themselves as artists. I stress the value of recycled arts, but with nearly 500 students each week, we go through supplies quickly.

My students are excited about Art this year!

This is my first year teaching Elementary Art and I've worked hard to create a comfortable and colorful studio environment for my students to engage and experience the joys of Art history, Art theory, and Art making. My school's administration is very appreciative of the Arts and my students are very eager to learn and create. When I see students in the hall, they ask if today is the day their class gets to come to Art. When I told my students about my love of ceramics and decorated my shelves with some of my own ceramic art, they got very excited about the possibility of working with clay. When I told them that our school does not have a kiln, they were disappointed. It was then that I decided to design a ceramics unit for each grade and transport their work to my house where I will use my personal kiln to fire their work. I look forward to letting my students know that they will, in fact, get to experience making a ceramic piece this year

My Project

With these resources in my classroom, my students will be able to experience the joys of making art and exploring the styles of the artists and cultures throughout history, which we study in class. My students not only make connections with history, but art making allows them to connect with Math, Science, Social Studies, and Literature. My students will each get to use a variety of different types of paints, experience color mixing first hand, and practice employing a variety of different painting techniques. Students will hopefully connect with the different processes, styles, and mediums, which will help reveal their personal interests as artists. With clay, glazes, and ceramic tools in my classroom, I will be able to achieve my goal of incorporating a ceramics unit into my curriculum this year, despite the fact that my classroom is not equipped with a kiln. Having a variety of paper and consumables is a necessity for any teacher who sees close to 500 students a week.

Donations to my student's exploration of materials this year in Art will help my students identify themselves as artists and explore their own creativity and personal interests.

Students lives will be enriched when they can experience using a variety of different art materials and processes to express themselves as individuals. The more options my students have to explore, the closer I will get to reaching each and every student, and insuring their connections with and appreciation of the arts.