Final Week: This post was fueled by 2nd grade Robots

Well folks we finally made it. I made it... I dare say I may have even succeeded! It's bittersweet to end something as exciting as student teaching - I felt like I could have done more for the students and schools but I was also ready to get all graduated! This week was spirit week for the holidays and Monday was "ugly sweater day" Uhhh... I didn't have an ugly one so I wore my awesome one instead?!

Monday: At the high school ceramics students were working on their new project, Slab vase/sculptures. They were creating and cutting down slabs using their paper templates to create walls and structure. I did a similar project in college with less than great results.. maybe something to try again in the future!

Drawing students were beginning to add their alterations to their environments and incorporate details. We talked a lot about placement of objects and figures and the next steps in the project. Students were really working hard on these and seemed excited about the results - the mark of a well-planned and paced lesson, I think :)

My 7th graders were cutting up tissue paper, tracing stencils, chatting chatting chatting, and some of them were really picking up speed on their ceramic bells. I had to catch up to them! Mine was going to be a snake with pattern work on the bell surface and lots of different textures on the snake itself. I like it - but I'm one of those weird people who likes snakes.

At the elementary school it was a bittersweet day.... my entire schedule for the rest of my student teaching was laid out in front of me.. I was excited to try out some new lessons but I was also sad that I wasn't going to see these kiddos anymore. It felt surreal penning down these last few days and organizing the lesson plans for what few classes I would work with. Mr. Keller and I were working on planning lessons that could be continued when I left or finished by Wednesday. I was beginning to feel a pang of jealousy... I wanted to keep working with the kids! I wanted to see how they would progress for the rest of the year and how their art would grow and change and develop.. I guess that's the price I pay for student teaching to the middle of the year - you leave with a sense of longing.

My task for the day at the elementary school was to work with the 6th graders on finishing their weaving projects. It was sad - they all knew it was my last week and were going the extra mile to spend time in the classroom with me. They did their best to be productive and even made me some going away 'presents'. They made some cards and braids and other little trinkets with yarn and I got lots of hugs and warm thanks. I have been putting my little gifts from students into a binder that I'm gonna refer to when the going gets rough.. like with a long day in 1st grade art or a mean comment from a parent or just a stressful time in general. I have looked at it a lot since graduation - and I have been gathering mementos and pieces from students and campers over the years for my feel-good binder. It means a lot to me to have that running timeline of good things.

Tuesday was exciting! One of my advanced students was finishing up sculpting his totally freaking awesome Darth Vader helmet... and modeling it, of course. He constructed everything by hand! He only used one mold to shape the dome of the helmet and everything else was hand built and carved and added and I was just so proud to see something like that on the firing shelf. Score 1000 for the nerds!!

Some of the ceramics students were also getting their hands dirty and finishing up twisted vessels of various sizes, shapes, patterns, and textures. It was fun to see them pushing the expectations of the assignment and starting to go "outside the box" for inspiration and expression. I really like the open-mindedness of this project. Every single student was working on something different and unique to them.

I snagged a photo of my 7th graders in a rare moment of not-talking and not-sassing! No but really, I learned a LOT teaching these kids. I am grateful for all the experiences they gave me in managing the classroom, pacing my lessons, and being patient with personalities. I still see some of them from time to time in passing or when hanging out with friends - it's all small towns up here! I was really proud of the work they accomplished and the risks they were taking with their art.

no sass pictured

Link! Stained glass! More nerdiness!

I took some time after Art survey ended to snap even MORE pictures of the advanced students' work. I have plans to do a post about my advanced students' individual projects as the semester carried through. It just got more and more impressive as time went on and they never stopped showing up ready to work.

a pretty little chickadee painting

a GIANT truck painting
some military portraits
musician portraits
football painting

huge giant huge wall mural-size painting of Native American dancers :)

At the elementary school I was working with 5th grade on 'color wheel paintings'. We were mixing colors and basically getting right down to business with making art! Students were having a good time making imaginative landscapes and creatures and creations with their palettes. I did find myself having to reinforce expectations quite a bit to keep the kids on task, but once they were painting they were pretty focused in on their work. This class, as with many others, has a lot of active personalities and quirks and I had to rearrange some seats to prevent issues, but I don't see that changing for this group for a long time anyway. With elementary school students sometimes it's better to prevent the problem from ever happening by some quick maneuvering of the seating arrangement.

not the prettiest painting ever but this student was really pleased with the colors he made
he said it looked like a stormy sky :)

This student always does super cool destructive art.
I encouraged it in all its forms, within reason.. no blood was allowed in his artwork. 

just a fun little color experimentation - I got to keep this one - it had my name written on it

My favorite from the bunch - same student as the first painting
I really love the movement and energy in this abstract work :)

"Ms. Kanak! I made pastels!"

color exploration of the concept of our "rainbow paintings"

Wednesday ... the final countdown to the end of student teaching. My face definitely shows some weariness on my final morning as Ms. Kanak, secondary art teacher at Wabeno. But I got lots of extra rest and prep in for this day - and tried to leave my heavy heart behind. I knew I was going to the school where I would be surrounded by art and awesome students and staff and support from all sides. I could be sad that I was gonna leave... or I could be really really happy I did the best I could and learned a lot and I was going to see family and graduate and and and. Aka... the positives outweighed the negatives by FAR.

reluctant to finish this quest...

Wednesday was a block day so Mr. Keller had his ceramics students double-time. I went down to the elementary school to do - what else!? - lesson planning! Mr. Keller had asked if I wanted to take over the 2nd grade lesson for the day - painting a close-up snowman. I jumped at the chance to put a Ms. Kanak spin on a painting project! We were going to paint robots. I will post the lesson plan later but for now I can do a quick run-through of process ;)

The main goal of this lesson was to teach students how to paint tints and shades. The up close snowman lesson focused on tints and shades of blue... so I worked with that as a framework for planning. I started to brainstorm about other 'blue' things... me, being the weirdorama that I am, I thought of robots. Soooo the first step was to learn about tints and shades. These students had already learned mixing colors and reviewed primaries and the color wheel. This was a simple math problem for each color made! If you wanted a tint of blue, you started with white and added blue. If you wanted a shade of blue you started with black and added blue.. you get the idea. The possibilities were really high for success and I experimented a lot with amounts of the hue + black/white.

The next step was to draw! 2nd grade does everything big so I used a big crayon to draw my shapes. I put together a presentation about different basic shapes we could combine to make the different components of the robot. I used as many as I thought would make my robot look good and functional.  I wanted students to make arms and legs of some kind and to leave enough space for the details, which would be added later... on that note, I will save the rest til we can see the students' work!

When I went back to the high school I made sure to snap some pictures of the in-progress drawings by the drawing students. They were really starting to understand the rules of perspective and placement of people and things! I was proud of them for taking on such a big challenge - they were doing a really good job.

woodland scene

fantasy goth environment..thingy

a campfire outside the library?!

a beach oasis in the hallway ;)

The 7th graders were working on their ceramic animal bells and man oh MAN did they work fast! Here's one next to my teacher's sample - I don't really know what mine is.. some kind of punk rock squid thing? Anyway, we talked about slipping and scoring with my ugly bell creature and I gave students the opportunity to add onto mine as they saw fit.

dog/cat bell and ugly squid Ms. Kanak monstrosity thing

these were fun - a blob fish and a panda!

One thing I noticed as students started working on their bells more was the ability level. Mr. Keller had been building up their knowledge of clay since 1st grade so they had a lot of years on me! I was impressed with their problem solving. Very rarely did I have to show a student step by step how to attach an appendage or detail. They were very familiar with the tools to use for certain techniques or textures, and they were happy to show me how they were accomplishing different parts of their projects.

a penguin and the start of a bear

a very inquisitive owl and a snake!

penguin

The student who made the penguin was really.. really really really trying to rush through this project. Every time she did something else to it she declared it finished.... until Ms. Kanak came over by it and offered polite suggestions and ideas. I think she restructured her bell a handful of times before being altogether happy with it, and even then she would question its completion and detail work. She really liked the texture of the feathers - and I did too! It was quite the uphill battle to get to this point, though. The only thing harder than students who don't want to work is students who race to the finish.

I really really liked this snake bell -
I thought the texture was great and loved the expressive eyes

Kind words from a kind Kaleb

This student... his work was not so great. Not as great as it could have been - by far. He was easily distracted, didn't really listen to the directions for the project, his focus waned and wandered, he was sitting with some really disruptive classmates... I could go on but the point of this story is he really tried. He tried very hard to make sense of this project and I felt like I failed him. Multiple times. I worked with him on planning his stained glass designs, drew pictures with him, guided him to finding reference images, and still he was displeased with his project and confused about the process. I looked at his project multiple times and sat with it for prep periods and really turned things over in my head; what could I have done?

I could have moved him from that table with the disruptive classmates.
I could have explained the project to him one-on-one one more time.
I could have done the project for him.
 No. No no. This is something I will not and would not do. This is something that some students come to expect. When you give up on their ability to accomplish the task or solve the problem, they look to you for the solution and the shiny result. They want you to do it for them - to make the sense without their participation. It is something I refuse to do and something I disliked about previous teachers I had in my art classes - don't do it for me; teach me how to do it so I understand. Don't let me lean on the teacher for the grade - I will only learn to be helpless. And time and time again Kaleb would tell me he understood when he just... didn't. He turned to his neighbor who was also struggling with the project and took his lead - and did the opposite of what I asked and what the project called for. The big teachable moment for myself here was that I want to be able to reach all of my students with my learning objectives and give them clear sight of what problem they need to tackle. I know it will be difficult to talk to every student and check in, but that's the beauty of having a smaller class size, and it also highlights the major way I failed Kaleb in my instruction. Lesson learned: take my time to explain my objectives and do not assume everyone is on the same page, in the same book, in the same library.

Some kids just need that extra minute or two where they can feel safe to ask what they need to ask.

I was really proud of this student for staying on task and finishing his window
he never shut up
ever

Okay, so I promised robots and we will get to that! First we have to talk about 1st grade :)  First graders were painting "changes in the weather" and they got to look at some really cool paintings of weather from different movements in art history and by different artists. It was a really cool way to get these kids thinking about how they could depict weather in their art. After that we practiced painting zig zags (for lightning), clouds, patterns of lines to make rain drops, swirly lines for wind, and in addition to all that we also looked at tints and shades! It's a big time lesson for big time artists - these kids did not disappoint.  We first mixed tints and shades with our blue paint and students quickly realized they could use their red and yellow to make orange aaaand that they could make tints and shades with the mixed colors too! I had a lot of fun wandering around the classroom and watching their minds work.. though there were some behavioral hangups. This is a rough class for noisy kiddos. I had one student yelling directions and yelling at me and yelling at his peers. I had another student who just could not sit still and wanted to be part of all of the former students' misbehaviors. I had another student who really just wanted to paint sharks. He always wants to paint and draw and make sharks - cool.. but not weather. I managed to get him to paint a bit of sky over his very menacing shark picture but he really struggled with that. He was also not following directions during demonstration and was poking at and moving the paints. This class got a lot of reminders about procedures and expectations in the art room and with painting. However, as you can see, they did paint some pretty great pictures of weather and were happy with their results.

And now.. the robots. So we left off with painting the bodies of the robots with our tints and shades. As this teacher could not have predicted, I was sassed by a bunch of 2nd graders about how robots are not blue, they're grey, Ms. Kanak! Well.. fine. Fine. Fiiiinnnneeeee. We improvise and we adapt and we move on. A lot of the kiddies decided after learning about tints and shades that they wanted grey robots instead of blue ones. So we had lots of different colored robots!

The real fun happened when I told the students how we were going to make our buttons and components and details.. I had found some q-tips in one of the cabinets when I was painting my own robot and thought... hey. This is a new way to apply paint! Let's make buttons! So I had robots with lots of buttons.. in snow.. and rain.. and I think lightning storms.. and with pink flowers. The kids really liked this lesson and I had a minimal amount of behavioral problems. Students were showing me their robot families and 'teams' and all other sorts of fun creations. I was pretty proud of them for taking on the challenge of making original drawings, too! Sometimes I was sure all these students knew how to do was copy from a picture of something else - how wrong Ms. Kanak was in this assumption. Their robots were lively and colorful and fun! I heard all about what they did for work and where they went to school. It was overwhelmingly cute.

The ones on the right are some of my favorites - so complex and different they all are! The one with the black and grey arm and the yellow lights.. too cool. I would definitely do this lesson again.

And just like that.. student teaching was over! I had to pack up my things and load them into my truck for the drive back home to the farm. I had to clear out my desk(s) and return everything to normal for Mr. Keller and the students. I had gathered so many memories and experiences and I didn't want to be done... but If I am being completely honest.. I was a little relieved. I was excited to consider the possibilities of my own future classroom(s) and students. I was ready to take on all the things! Teaching and otherwise! I still feel that way - though I will leave my final reflection for my next post because it's getting late and my eyeballs and fingers are tired from all my typing! This is what happens when life and time and fun gets in the way of working - you have to play catch up! If only I had super awesome 2nd grade robots to help me out in my blogging...

to be continued...

Ms. Kanak - signing off until her back is properly rubbed from marathon typing in a wooden chair.

Week 14 of Student Teaching: Bell Animals, Twinkling Lights, and Learning to Draw Stars

Wowowowow

Wow. Life has taken some interesting, exciting, and unexpected turns. All for the good, of course, but the turns sometimes get in the way of me getting things done.... and I feel bad about it but blogging will always be here. AND I have a lot to share and catch up on in that department so let's get to it!

Week 14 was marked by the happy return to school after a much needed and enjoyed break from school days. I am always thankful for Thanksgiving as it serves a worthy purpose of being a week-long vacation from thinking about school (ha!) and grading (HA ha!). I look forward to the days where I will be responsible for planning and teaching a full year from start to finish -then I am sure I will truly realize the worth of little vacations like these. I have always enjoyed Thanksgiving for the time with friends and family and the extra work time.. But again I digress.. Back to work!

Monday started off with students in ceramics - working on their various projects, ideas, and clay messes. Though truth be told I was probably the worst ceramics student in the classroom... embarrassing, really. But I tried to learn along with the students about construction techniques, clay handling and care (like not dropping or smashing things carelessly...or angrily), glaze combinations, and so on. I was happy to be learning under Mr. Keller's students and gathering their expert advice for making decisions about my own work.

In Drawing we were sending the kiddos into the hallway to work on their perspective drawings. The hard thing with this group was keeping them focused.. they love to talk and visit and gossip and get other students' attention.. the 'they' being a select few students, but still, a tricky bunch to keep on target. Mr. Keller and I were trading responsibilities and objectives with this lesson plan - helping students find the correct perspective lines and approaches to their drawings. I spent more time watching and listening to Mr. Keller as he walked students through his tried and true techniques for perspective drawing and tried to pull from my own experiences and knowledge. It's easy to say you know something; it's much harder to explain how and to teach it. Perspective is one of those somethings I need to work on more before I will be comfortable teaching it regularly.

7th Grade was cranking out stained glass windows of all shapes, sizes, and colors. And COLORS they had in abundance, wow. Mr. Keller and I both discussed maybe, for next time, teaching them more about arranging their colored tissue paper in more orderly ways - or having them do selective color. I think I mentioned in the previous post.. this lesson did not go as smoothly as planned- sometimes it's all about the information and examples you present with your lesson objectives.

rainbow art and sports inspirations

This one is still and will always be my favorite -
Thanksgiving and all the smells!

a vibrant and gestural campfire

The fourth of July fireworks and flag, complete with Mr. Keller hiding in the background

I snuck out to fill the display case with some student work -
LOOK AT THE PAINTINGS :D
So proud

Down at the elementary school I was in charge of the 'mixing colors of paint' lesson. Now.. these students have been taught how to handle paint, clean paint, set down blotters, clean brushes, step-by-step for years since kindergarten. Which is AWESOME. But you can never predict the behaviors of 5th graders. Luckily for me they were in a creative and also a LISTENING mood and we got a lot of really great colors made :) We focused on re-learning the color wheel, naming color groups and families, and then finally painting. I especially liked this student's solar system - she begged me to use black paint for the background but unfortunately we ran out of time... Next time, lady. I promise.

Just a cool thing I found to round out my day :)
I liked it and wanted to share it with you

Tuesday was exciting for many reasons! One of which was I got to deck out in my new Star Wars earrings from my wonderful friend Sarah. I was proudly displaying my support of the Rebels all day long at school and was pointed out by students to be the "cool nerdy teacher". Yeah, Thank you.

I had a break from teaching ceramics today as they were learning about glazing their paddle vases. The advanced students kept working away, though - really cool and fun ideas all over the room at this school :)

In Drawing we were once again in the hallways having the students measure and remeasure, sight-measure and then check with tools, and so on and so forth. Mr. Keller and I again traded posts making sure kids were staying on task and also sharing tips and tricks for mastering perspective drawing techniques.

this student was really struggling and Mr. Keller and I both worked with her a lot

One loooong hallway!

This one was going to have a river with tributaries flowing out of the doors. COOL!

working on capturing the visual tricks perspective plays on our brains..

a windy twisty hallway

stairs, man.. just.. so many stairs.

7th grade was working on stained glass windows and making a pretty good show of it! So many color combinations and experiments happening...

I almost forgot to mention! I was getting started on a new lesson today - ceramic bells :) I will post the lesson later but I was so excited to be facilitating a ceramics lesson! The goal was for students to choose an animal and render it in clay as a functional object - a bell. We listened to a recording of Japanese wind bells and meditated on the sounds they made, reflecting on the tranquility we felt, memories we had... it was all very Zen and calming and necessary to quiet them down because they are a bunch of 7th graders. The goal for students who finished their windows was to do sketches for bell ideas. I snapped a few pictures of some of them - I think they were excited to draw more than anything else :)

At the elementary school I was observing a 1st grade painting lesson - brush strokes! The main idea here was not to mix colors, as I quickly learned, but to apply different patterns and brush strokes to the paper to experiment with movement of the brush and proper use of the tools. Coooool lesson!  Kindergarteners were working on making hats! Just as fun as it sounds :) They had long banners of paper which they then applied coiled, step-folded, and decorated paper to with glue. After that they drew patterns and lines all over everything to decorate their hats. The last step was to bring them up to the front of the room where Mr. Keller stapled them together to fit on the little heads - no, he did not staple them TO the children. Jeeze, people!

they were too cute to not take a picture of, really.

This was one of the cutest things ever...
This little girl really really wanted to learn how to draw stars, so we drew together and practiced
She gave me this at the end of class. So proud :)

2nd Grade was working on mixing colors and they did an awesome job! We went over our color families and proper painting procedures without much issue :) The goal was to learn the secondary colors and then apply that knowledge into painting a rainbow with all the colors. So many colors - and no wrong way to do it!

had to throw a panorama in there :)

Wednesday started off with kiln Christmas - the advanced students made some seriously awesome glaze combinations on their ceramic pieces!

some more twisted vessels in the making..

Ceramics students had their block day today - Mr. Keller was introducing the slab vase for their new project. This was a cool-looking project. Students had to use a template to create the form of the vase - think of it like a paper model of the finished product as a blueprint. Lots of students were not ready for this project as they were finishing up others or devising ideas for the twisted vessel project. Pacing of projects is important for this group; so many different ability levels are presented and everyone needs something to work on at all times!

Block day meant we had our double time for 7th grade. Stained glass windows were being finished up, bells were being drawn up, ideas were being formed...we went over the proper handling of clay, distributed clay chunks, and started talking about techniques for forming the bells. We learned how to wedge clay - Ms. Kanak took full advantage of the double-long class meeting, for real. We worked at mastering the art of wedging and talked about WHY we wedge, WHEN we wedge.. all the good wedging knowledge. We also learned pinching techniques - re-learned, actually. One of many benefits of a k12 art education system - and started to form bell shapes with our clay.

Wabeno decorates their hallways for the holidays - so pretty!

At the elementary school I was working with one of the fourth grade class on their rainbow drawings. I think I have written about this class the most.. but really. They were my biggest challenge, behaviorally. I have notes written from this teaching day: "reinforce voice levels AT ALL TIMES", "expectations", "discourage splatter/messy painting." Some of the students in this group really REALLY wanted to finger paint and smear paint all over their papers... ugh. We had a couple of completely ruined papers from brownish blackish yellowish paint mixtures. I figured out which students needed to have their seats moved or at least needed an extra dose of reminders of expectations throughout the class period. On the other end of the spectrum there were some seriously talented painters in this group as well! I just wish that their behavior was in conjunction with their artistic skills..

Thursday was another block day - started with Drawing and we discussed ALL the things. Mr. Keller and I took another look at perspective drawing techniques. I presented an exercise to students about proportions and placement of objects/figures in a 3D space. I showed them an image of a room drawn using perspective. After discussing the importance of the directions of perspective lines, vanishing points, horizon, eye-level and all other things that are just such a handful and a half to teach I asked students to tell me where we would place figures in foreground, middle ground, and background positions. We then discussed why and even added in depth cues.. it was a lot to process, but from what I could see the students' drawings improved immensely as they started adding their fantasy elements into the compositions.

The rest of the day was one long prep period for me to get work and grading and planning and correspondence with family and teachers done. So needless to say I left school early and worked my little teacher bottom off all afternoon. I had to coordinate my graduation plans and finalize lesson plans and do my last surveys for student teaching.. it was all coming to a close... and reality was hitting pretty hard!

Friday was a diligent work day in all three high school classes. I did not get any pictures from the students cause I was busy walking around and co-teaching and observing and coaching and ahh! Everything. All the things. It was productive. We will say that.

At the elementary school I was set to teach the full afternoon - and teach I did!
The other half of the second graders were learning about mixing colors and painting rainbows. Some of them even got to paint extra pictures after their rainbows were all done and squared away! There were a couple of students in this group who were struggling with listening.. and voice level.. and following directions. It's amazing to me how early students show signs of defiance and a need to be right and in control - 2nd grade!? it's crazy. I reviewed proper use of paints and brushes to preserve supplies and teach correct use of materials... some of these students just really wanted to scrub their papers with their brushes. Oye.

6th Grade was working on finishing up their weavings today! I really think this lesson would have gone smoother if I had more time to spend with the whole grade on a more regular basis. Between in-class meetings and push-ins I did what I could to not hurry but motivate students to finish their weavings. Their results went all across the board - some students obviously took the time to listen and follow directions, while others rushed, and still less than a handful of others gave up on the project entirely. With more one-on-one time with students I think we could have done more with this concept and I know that the majority of students were pleased with their final weavings..

This last lesson of the week was one of my favorites of the whole semester: Drawing Animals with Invented Textures. Students were exploring the use of texture and pattern in their drawings to fill space and suggest animal textures (fur, hair, spikes, you name it!). It was a lesson out of the classroom textbook for their grade but we had a lot of fun drawing both real and imaginary animals on our papers. We used marker to draw the outline of our animal or creature and then filled in the body with textures that suggested what the animal felt like.

bigfoot with a fro

imaginary star creature

Some students really got into this assignment! They invented creatures and with those creatures came the textures, lines, patterns, and designs. We did some examples on the board of repeated lines to form patterns and looked at images of textures and patterns we saw in nature. This lesson was so fun! One of the main challenges the kids had was deciding which creature or animal they were going to draw for their project... that can be a major roadblock for students of all ages. "What do I draw, Ms. Kanak?" Whatever you want! I had to give some students ideas for animals but after they had a few most of them got right to work.

This one made me laugh...
a two headed dragon carrying off a balding man
What?!

Some students went the more methodical route and just filled the inside of the outlined animal with their patterns and textures.. but some of them incorporated lots of different colors and even words into their drawings! This one below was my favorite - look at the gestural lines and patterns and colors! I love it!

As I finish typing this post I can't help but feel proud. I went from being darn-near terrified of teaching littles to happily sitting down to create teacher samples and working very hard at classroom management for a more harmonious class hour with many grades. At the end of this week and after looking over all myself and my students had accomplished I had a big realization : I was ready. Not ready to be the best teacher ever, because that takes time and confidence I am still working to build, but ready to take on the challenge of maybe, just maybe, learning how to become a better teacher, classroom manager, planner, and learner. It's an extremely humbling experience; being in the presence of such raw creativity that children possess and having to be constantly ready to foster that and motivate them to Want to share it with others.. or even to share it at all. 

I am reminded of when Payton, that little tiny little kindergartener she is, came up to me and asked to learn how to draw stars. She had seen them everywhere, so many times before, but she just wasn't sure how. I took the time to show her, step by step, line by line, the slow process of drawing that seemingly simple symbol I had learned so long ago. We practiced and got turned around a couple of times, but eventually Payton was happily drawing stars all over her little construction paper hat and eventually on a manila sheet of paper with her name scrawled across it - a sheet of paper I proudly display in my teaching "relic" binder to remind myself of the journey we took together to make stars appear. 

My main goal for teaching littles, apart from learning some expert ways to rein them in for directions and attention, is to set objectives that are realistic. One thing at a time, Ms. Kanak - Rome was not built in a day, nor are children taught how to mix colors, create patterns, do color washes, and resist techniques in one day's time... I will strive to make the time to reach those students who aren't so sure of themselves in other areas or medias or subjects. I tend to get ahead of myself and sometimes ahead of my students in terms of their abilities - sometimes it needs to be one step at a time to build up the confidence to move forward. They need that extra reassurance and time and a reminder that stars can be made in one day.

The next post will be my long-postponed final post from my semester of student teaching. It's sad to think that it's over.. but it's exciting to look forward to what happens next.

Until then, 

Ms. Kanak - signing off.