I love art. I enjoy art history. I like drawing and painting. I enjoy paper crafts, sewing, etc . . . Still, when it comes to planning art projects for the kids, it is way down on my priority list. Besides, the boys aren't really thrilled about it most of the time. Just trying to get them to color when their papers require it is like pulling teeth (or worse). Josh hated coloring so much in Kindergarten that I had to find alternate work papers for him to do when the curriculum called for coloring. He just hated to color. Then, we have the girls in our house. Girly girls, that's what they are. The only thing better than coloring for them is when you get to add glitter, glue, sparkles, or sequins to your project (or anything really, sparkles make everything better.) 3 girls who want to color everything, 2 boys who don't want to color anything, and 1 teacher who doesn't do art projects. This is not a good equation for art class. I needed help.
I set aside a portion of our classroom allotment this year and purchased quite a few craft kits. This way, all the planning is done for me. Everything is prepared and ready to go - no planning and no preparation. That's the best kind.
We've done a few of these so far and I must say that they've inspired me to do more. The response from the kids has been phenomenal - even the boys! We did a project painting suncatchers. I thought it would be something the boys really would not like at all and I was preparing myself to do battle with them. To my amazement, they loved it. Josh did such an amazing job with it. He went so far as to paint tiny pin-size dots into the stripes on his suncatcher. I guess I'll be doing more fun art projects this year and incorporating art history and art appreciation as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment