Why I Believe Teaching is For Me

          From a very young age I had a love for little children. I remember when I was only five years old sitting on my parents’ bed, holding and feeding my cousin’s brand new little baby while my mom was busy around the house. When I was little older I started babysitting the neighbor kids on a weekly basis. I loved the nights I could sit with those four kids and read, draw, experiment, play with toys, and do so many other activities. As the years went on four kids turned into five and then six and some of the fun times evolved into helping with homework. As I sat by those kids and talked about their homework with them, I realized that I was actually pretty good at helping them understand and motivating them to complete their homework.

I can recall multiple times during my childhood being told by grownups that I would make a wonderful teacher. Many of them asked me if I wanted to become a teacher when I grew up. I always found myself saying that I probably did not want to teach. At the time teaching did not seem like an exciting job for me. I was surrounded by teachers every day of my life, so why on earth would I want to become one? Realizing that teaching was for me was a long and slow process. Now that I am here I cannot imagine having any other major. Becoming a teacher and being around children and in the classroom is right for me, and it is where I feel at home.

Little children melt my heart. I love watching them explore the world around them. More than once I have found my date laughing at me at a restaurant because my focus had shifted to the adorable children at the table across the room. I am drawn to children, I love interacting with them, answering their questions, and hearing their giggles. I enjoy getting down to a child’s level and watching the spark in their eyes during those “ah-ha’ moments when they finally figure something out. I am passionate about watching and helping children learn.

It is often said that, for children, play is their work. I believe that the world is starting to forget this. I have personally observed many people push academic learning onto children at a very young age. They expect them to sit down with their books and to learn. I know that playing is the best way for young children to learn. Through play they will learn their alphabet and they will develop their reading skills. They will learn about science as they build with blocks and cook in the kitchen. Children will learn math as they group toys together and play with water. Something that many adults view as simple play is actually intense learning time for young children. 

I want to be the person that is guiding a child's learning and holding their little hands as they come to understand the world around them a little bit more. I want to be that teacher that sees everyone's differences and embraces them, not just the students who look different because of their race. I want to be the kind of teacher that does not let ANY child fall through the cracks or become invisible because their needs are not met. I want to be the teacher that inspires her students and instills a love in them for learning. 

On a separate note... blogs can be a wonderful source for teachers and they can help teachers get through classroom problems, help find new books for the classroom, help think of activities to incorporate into lessons that are hands on, etc. Here are a few links to some awesome blogs that can help in teaching! 

• Teaching is Elementary
• A Year of Reading
• Learning is Messy

Practicum  

I did my art practicum at Adams Elementary School in a first grade class. 

I did my Butternut Squash Project where I brought in Squash, cut and whole, and had the students investigate the squash and then paint what they learned from their investigation. 

Georgia O'Keeffe Flowers 

Georgia O'Keeffe focused on flowers and viewing them with a different perspective. 

This project was based off of her watercolor flowers. 

I really enjoyed this project. Personally, I love flowers, always have and always will. I have always thought that painting them was fun and this project just gave me an excuse to improve on painting a flower with watercolor. 

I use to really struggle with watercolor. I have always really enjoyed it, but for some reason I was just never that happy with my ending art piece. I guess because of my past, I have been kind of scared of water color. This project kind of forced me to longer be afraid. I had to jump in and do the project, and I was determined to have an ending piece I was happy with. 

Here is a short step by step tutorial on how to do this project. 

First, Collect your materials. You will need 

> A large piece of water color paper.

> A sketchbook

> A pencil

> A ruler

> Scissors

> Blue Painters tape

> Paint Brushes

> Watercolor

> Flower

> Water 

Tear out a Piece of paper from your sketchbook and cut a one-inch by one-inch square in the center of your paper. 

Look through your hole to view different perspectives of your flower. Sketch a few different perspectives in your sketch book then choose your favorite perspective.  

Measure out your square on your paper and tape off your square. 

< Lightly sketch out your flower. 

> Then jump in and start painting. 

Remember to not just use the given colors but to mix your own colors! 

Keep painting away until you are happy with the final look. Remember to use different techniques like wet-on-wet to create different looks. 

When all done, let dry and then gently pull off the tape to reveal a perfect border. 

Batik 

Batiking is a form of dying fabric to create a design where wax or some sort of resistance creates the design where the fabric is not dyed. 

This was one of my favorite projects even though it is the project that took me the most time to do. 

After creating a design, I took my piece of fabric, placed it over an outlined sketch of my design. I then took my resistance and traced my design. When the resistance was dry, I painted of the whole fabric with non washable tempera paint. After the paint was dry I picked off the resistance and washed my fabric. 

I really wanted to create something fun and interesting to look at with this project. My design was very small in some areas which was pretty difficult to make, and painful to scratch off the very thin resistance off the fabric. 

All in all, after everything was done, I was very pleased with how this project turned out. I was happy that all the little details show and I love that my project was unlike anyone else's. 

Tutorials for this project can be found here and here. 

Milk Jug Mask

In African cultures, African masks are traditionally used for special ceremonies and rituals. 

This was an awesome project and perfect for the classroom! 

Everyone brought their own milk jug to class. We observed and learned a little about African masks, and then we were off to make our own. 

First, I decided what part of the milk jug I wanted to use and cut out the shape of my mask.

Second, I covered it masking tape, paying very careful attention to the design of my tape. 

Third, I rubbed brown shoe polish all over the mask. I did multiple layers of shoe polish to make my mask a nice bark-like dark brown.

Fourth, I added my paint (after the shoe polish dried).

Fifth, I punched some holes in the top of the mask and added my grassy hair. 

Like I have said before, I really like simplicity. To me, most of the time less is more. I did not want to clutter up my whole mask by painting the whole thing. I liked my texture and design I had already created with my tape, and I just wanted to add to that. I think that just a little paint was the perfect touch to finish off my mask. 

A tutorial for this project can be found here. 

Pinch Pots 

Maria Martinez was a Native American known around the world for her pottery. 

We learned a little about Maria in class and learned about a technique that she used to make her pinch pots. 

Out of air dry clay, I rolled out a ball. I stuck my finger in the middle of the ball and started making a bowl-like object. I kept shaping it until I had my vase. I then too the left overs and created a little bowl for my vase to sit on. 

After the pots completely dried, I painted it with acrylic paint so I would have a little shine to the paint. 

I decided to make a little vase because I thought it would be fun to have a homemade vase sitting on my desk with some of my dried flowers in it. 

Air dry clay would be great for the classroom because it allows students to get their hands dirty and learn a little bit about clay, yet it does not have as great of risk of breaking because it will not be put through the kiln.

A Tutorial for this project can be found here.  

Chinese Brush Painting

We learned about and were shown examples of some amazing Chinese brush paintings. We were then shown how to do the three different strokes that make up a bamboo plant and how to make the ink. We were given little Chinese brush kits with ink to grind, a grinding stone, and some paint brushes. 

On rice paper I created a little bamboo jungle. I loved being able to grind my own paint and make the color I wanted. 

My first layer of bamboo was a very very light color to show depth. I then just kept darkening the ink to create darker shades of colors to have bamboos that appeared closer and closer. 

I really enjoyed this project because it was different than anything you normally see in a classroom. It was fun to get to make my own ink and to learn the traditional paint brush strokes. 

A tutorial for this project can be found here.