3rd Art Experience

For my 3rd Art Experience I volunteered at the Springville Days Art Festival. It was a completely new experience for me and had a great impact on me as far as different teaching and parenting ideas. I worked in the booth where we made puppet flowers. One thing that I learned is the importance of having examples when teaching a specific skill. I made an example of the puppet flower to show the kids how the moving petals worked. After they saw the final product they understood and became much more motivated. Another one of the lessons that I learned is that the beauty of art projects is that they can be adapted to the appropriate level for the students. For some of the smallest children, who were already fading because of the intense heat of the day, making the puppet flowers was too much. Instead we helped them glue the flower together. I realized that the most important thing was to help them feel successful, rather than have them focuses upon finishing a set project. For some of the older students they intently focused upon planning and  picking just the right colors and then gluing them on. My eyes were opened to all of the different levels of motivation and skill and how you have to approach each of the students differently to help them feel successful in their project. 

I am so glad that I volunteered at this event. It made me realize how many different funds of knowledge are available though the community. As a teacher I want to encourage my students to participate in community events. Even more than that I want to bring different people in from the community to bring new ideas and skills into my classroom.