Goodbye Art, Hello Fifth Grade

Less than one month until I hold my first Back to School night in my first real contracted classroom as a full-time elementary teacher. I can't say the process was easy and without tears, but my husband quoted what my friend Robyn always said, "It will all work out." I got my dream job: teaching civil war, poetry, geology, novels, etc. in my neighborhood school. I learned so much teaching art part-time this spring and will appreciate much more not having to drag my supplies up the ramp in the snow to my portable! Brace yourselves, kids at Nibley Elementary, we are in for an exciting adventure!

Meeting Fablehaven's Brandon Mull

Beside the stump, dressed in crude rags, sat a wiry old woman gnawing at a knot in a bristly rope. Shriveled with age, she clutched the rope in bony hands with knobby knuckles. Her long, white hair was matted and had a sickly yellowish tint. One of her filmy eyes was terribly bloodshot. She was missing teeth, and there was blood on the knot she was chewing, apparently from her gums. Her pale arms, bare almost to the shoulder, were thin and wrinkled, with faint blue veins and a few purple scabs.

I used this creepy descriptive writing excerpt from Fablehaven a year before I actually read the entire book. A third grader named Dylan in my class was crazy about the hag named Muriel tied up in an old shack (she graces the cover of Book 1). In true Harry Potter style, the Fablehaven books hook young readers with fantastical plots, lovable characters, and settings you always wished to find in your own grandparents' back yard.

My own grandma Genevieve lived alone in a large house at the base of Mt. Olympus in Salt Lake. Off the back porch was a winding pathway that led zigzag, zigzag steeply down to a . . . you'll just have to guess. My brothers and I would play under a large evergreen tree whose roots were more exposed than buried. We sometimes created scenarios of armies of Hobbit-ish ogres living inside it and constructed protective fortresses in the bushes closer to the house.

Back to my story. Fablehaven's author, Brandon Mull, visited the school where I was student teaching and I, along with other young fans eager to buy his autographed books, was able to meet him. During his speech to the student body, he encouraged active imaginations of fearless writers who will create tomorrow's stories. Write, write, write and read, read, read. Then (this part was for me), SHARE, SHARE, SHARE.

Opera for Children

What brought thirty 4th-grade boys and girls (and three teachers) to school on a Saturday morning to sew glittery fish scales, assemble fish fry dinner plates, decorate sheet cakes, and paint bakery window displays? Would you believe me if I said, "OPERA"? What if I added that these same students had written the plot and lyrics themselves?! I was invited as one of the school art specialists to help with Opera Scenery Day.

Mrs. Anderson, the classroom teacher, has oodles to say about this experience. The students work through the writing process, setting it to a musical score, singing and staging production numbers, designing concept sketches for the props and scenery, and performing in front of their peers and families. I was honored to be a small part in this process and look forward to implementing some kind of similar program in my own classroom someday.

"eARTh"

Earth Art. From Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids of Giza to Utah's own Spiral Jetty, artists have been using materials in nature for millenia to tell stories and understand the world. Celebrating Earth Day with Kindergarteners today reminded me of the peaceful experience I had at this Evening for Educators workshop at Snow College where I worked with lichen-y bark, pea gravel, pine cones, and one of my best friends. Amberly discovered how to harness the light shining through the hole in the bark as the center of her starburst of seed whirligigs. She definitely has an artistic eye.

Being an art teacher at River Heights Elementary for almost five months has forced me to learn to trust my own artistic eye and "dig into" the skills that make art ART. We realized that each small group of artists at the workshop employed color, repetition, line, texture, etc. and we could find similarities between them all. I envy Amberly's talents every time I read the children's books we have written and illustrated together or look at her paintings; what I am learning, though, is that the more I learn about art, the better my artistic attempts are. My job is to teach children that there is an artist inside each one of them. Hearing students that used to say "But it isn't good," or "I'm just not an artist" instead say "Look at what I did!" is my reward.