I am preparing to present at the Regional Teacher Institute next Friday and I had no hesitation what I wanted to do. This will be the 4th time I have presented at the Institute and I love it because each time it is something different. My first presentation was back when I taught at another school and I co-presented on school improvement. My second time was on Blogger itself and my third was a co-presenter on a Fine Arts Forum. This year is something new yet again. This year I am presenting to elementary educators on adding art into their traditional classroom. I am so excited about this! I have taught for 14 years, and the first 10 years I was a pre-k through 6 grade art teacher and I loved it! There is something special about creating with young children. They get those little heads down on that table, tongue sticking out and they are officially in art zone. Don't bother them, just let them go. And they create these masterpieces that are perfect in each and every way. There is something about art and children. Art brings out something inside them, something we don't always reach just through reading and writing. I have never been able to give up working with these little ones. I still teach summer art at the Art Museum here in town and my art club always holds a winter arts festival at Wenz Elementary ever year where my high school students teach the elementary kids. I want my high school kids to see the sparkle and they do. What I do may be different from the traditional high school art teacher, is that I approach my high school students the same way I did my elementary students. I want to see that same focus in my older kids that I did my younger and sometimes that means thinking outside the box a little. My research for this new presentation has been so fun. There are things that I had "forgotten" and had that great "aha" moment again. This is going to be so much fun!
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