"I saw my art on the wall!" "Man, I am an artist!" These are just a couple of phrases I hear on a daily basis. Getting to witness the joy on my students' faces when they see their artwork displayed throughout the school or step back to view their art after they create something new is so thrilling as an art teacher.
My students are creative and love expressing their artistic abilities in my art class whether it's painting, drawing, or even sculpting and so much more!
From the minute they walk in the door of my classroom I focus on their artistic potential and growth while they are with me. Art helps bring out my kids' creative side that a normal classroom setting might not help them achieve and, in turn, helps them excel in the classroom. I love to incorporate core academic subjects in some of our art projects to help my students see that art is connected to everything! By adding in new and different art mediums for our various activities I have planned for the year, I am hopeful to inspire even our earliest learners to continue on a path of artistic excellence.
My Project
I try to think of new and exciting activities to bring into my art classroom each and every day to keep the creativity alive. This year I entered my 6th year of teaching and started at a new elementary school with a whole new fresh look on what my art classroom would look like. We were only in school for about a week before Hurricane Harvey hit and took its toll on our community. This minor set back of being out of school for nearly 3 weeks might have put a kink in my lesson plans, but it inspired me to get even more creative with my lessons so that my students don't miss out on any opportunity to experience different forms and mediums of art this year and in the future.
My vision is to implement free-choice based art stations that allow my students to independently experiment and create with various art mediums.
My students will use the utility carts to keep each station organized and have their supplies readily available. I will be creating a water color station, stamping and stencils station, paper origami station, yarn projects station, free drawing station using the zentangle drawing books as well as some how-to-draw book I picked up myself, and a sculpting station with the air dry clay. I will partner these new stations with some that I currently have in my classroom (legos, building blocks, etc.)
All of these stations will be free-choice based where each student can move about the room to choose what they will create. Not only will these new supplies for stations help my students have more freedom in what they create, but these stations will promote independent working, learning, an creativity.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Melancon and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.