Teaching Artist Practicum:
Placement #1: Urban Arts Academy, Preschool, Wednesday 1:15 - 4:00 (2.75 Hours)
Placement #2: Whittier International Elementary School, Teachers Susan Buchholz and Angela Olson, Kindergarten, Monday 12:15 - 3:00 (2.75 Hours)
Shadowing: Minneapolis Institute of Art, Angela Olson, No Shadowing Opportunity This Week
Urban Arts Academy - Preschool
Wednesday, April 10th, 1:15 - 4:00 ( 2.75 Hours)
On Wednesday, when I arrived at Urban Arts Academy, I was greeted by two new substitute teachers in room 208. With that being said, I was unable to get any planning done in regards to my arts integrated lesson with the/a head teacher sadly. The first thing we did was go to the gym with the students, and it was an enjoyable time. I find the students’ imaginations really interesting. They are always coming up with new games, new ways to play with equipment, and so on and so forth. When it’s time to leave however, they don’t like to listen and it takes about 15 extra minutes just to get them lined up and walking back up the stairs, which frustrates all the teachers. After gym time, the students had free play. They played with blocks, played dress up, and whatever else they could find in the classroom. We then had story time; it still amazes me how well this listen to me when I begin to read a book to them in the front of the class. We read “The Day the Crayons Came Home”, which is an adorable book with cute illustrations, so maybe I enjoyed it more than the kids. However, the kids knew almost all the words, so it must be one of their favorites. After reading, we set up art stations for the day. Most of the students were trying to get into the clay station, but there was also a coloring pages station and a oil pastel plate coloring station, which I sat at. One kid I talked with at this station told me that he really does not like art, which is comical to me considering he’s at Urban Arts Academy, but it also is really sad to me. He told me how he thinks it is boring; with my project I’d really like to change that. It makes me wonder if he has just been exposed to only the same types of art over and over, and how I hope Urban Arts tries their best to come up with unique projects so that the kids don’t get burnt out - burn out is currently what I’m experiencing at this point in the semester. Being at Urban Arts for only one day out of the week and only working with preschoolers doesn’t allow me to really know what other things are going on as far as art projects. Perhaps in the future I might find an opportunity to work with the older students at Urban Arts. I feel like growing up, if I was able to go to a place like Urban Arts Academy I would have been in heaven.
Whittier International Elementary - Kindergarten
Monday, April 8th, 12:15 - 3:00 (2.75 Hours)
On Monday, April 8th I went to Whittier and worked with Angela for the day. Angela is always good at giving me students to go work with in the hall in small groups or individually. This time around, I worked with about 15 students total, both in math and sounding out simple words. For sounding out words, students were given three letter words and images of the words. Before they could glue the images next to the correct word, we went letter by letter sounding them out together. For math, we rolled dice and counted the dots and wrote the correct number on a counting sheet. The students are always eager to work with me which makes it really fun, and I can actually see improvement from when I started working with them in the beginning of the semester. Doing this sort of individualized work took up most of the time, and allowed me to get to know the students even better. I think the teachers really appreciate the extra help when it comes to revisiting small lessons. I’m just glad I get to give the students the extra learning time so they improve! Other than helping teach, I just helped out in the classroom and listened in on Angela’s lessons. Overall, the day went by super fast, and I look forward to tackling new things next week!
Minneapolis Institute of Art - Open Studio Day Shadowing
No Shadowing Opportunity This Week
Personal Update
I was extremely bummed this whole week due to the winter weather, so I am just doing my best to look towards spring! 🌷🌷🌷🐰🐰🐰