Day 2: Ready, set, prep! (Giselle)

I just quite possibly had the busiest prep day of my life. My day began with a breakfast with the elementary kids in the gym, then 1st period of art in the high school. The high school art class has four students (and they all showed up, which I heard was unusual). The teacher, who was very kind, showed me the art supplies and then asked, "so what are you thinking about teaching today?" Woo-hoo!! Right off the get-go. Luckily, they had been working with tissue paper, and I have been doing that as well, so it worked out alight. It was a very brief demonstration-- me setting up glue and brushes and demonstrating painting techniques simultaneously.

High School art class this morning.

After the hour of high school, I went down to the elementary school. The principal introduced me to each elementary grade teacher and then talked to me about schedules. I will be teaching 45-minute art classes to every grade (2/3 combined, 4/5 combined) every day. AND, he wanted an art show of what we did in all the classes set up for the Friday afternoon assembly! I was forewarned that I would be busy, so I wasn't too surprised. I set off to prepping lessons for every grade-- I made sketch books for Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders. I created color wheel worksheets, cut copious amounts of construction paper and read through children's books in the library. Thankfully, I already had some multi-day lessons prepared for Chinook (the Fairbanks Montessori) that I could try out with the 4/5 graders and the 6th graders... so they're good to go.

Of course then there's the searching for supplies. That was half the battle. But by the end of the school day, after having individual meetings with each teacher about their students and their curriculum, I felt somewhat ready for Day 1 of elementary art, which will be tomorrow.

Snow machines outside the elementary school-- the main transportation of the village.

St. Mary's 1st graders have reading time in the hall.

My next challenge this evening is to plane for the high school class. The teacher really wants them to do sculpture, I tried to explain I'm a little less creative in the 3-D design/sculpture area, but I will brainstorm. I think I'm just going to have them do Zen-tangles trees tomorrow morning. Easy, fun and cool results.

--Giselle