My students brighten my day and force me to get a good night's sleep every night just to keep up with them!
I am never bored teaching art to middle school students- just exhausted!
I love that I teach in an ethnically diverse school and that I can learn new things from my students-and be awed by their artistic creations with each project we do. My arts curriculum is full of multicultural and hands-on art projects that give my students an opportunity to design, build and create-not just draw and paint. My arts classroom is very diverse-and includes Gifted, English as a Second Language Learners, and special needs children with a variety of learning disabilities. I love that we all make art together in harmony and happiness. These young people may have different needs, challenges, and personal histories, yet the arts enable them to share a common thread, as they discover the magic and delight of making something beautiful with their own hands.
My Project
Every new school year is exciting, but teaching origami (it's my second Design Crafts project) is something I look forward to every year! Of course, many students may have loved origami as a child when they folded their first airplane. But by middle school, so many are now convinced they can't do origami - it's too difficult they practically groan and proclaim in unison! So imagine how delightful it is for me, as a teacher, when they fall in love with origami, all over again.
Like clockwork, usually once students have folded their first origami model, a Secret Letter, I see it!
Sometimes it's during the folding of the second model, a Penguin, which actually stands using the principle of balance in its folds. Every year, it's a Eureka moment, and students who thought they would have no success with origami, have re-discovered the joy of folding paper. I watch my students racing through their origami books, eager to master the next project, and lining up their origami models with pride on their desks. Both simple folds and more complex folds are attempted, re-attempted, then mastered, as the magic of origami and its transformative properties are revealed. Because making the 2-dimensional into the 3- dimensional, really is like a kind of magic we all can learn!
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