Takin' the Plunge

For several years I've wanted to try more authentic art with my kids.  We don't have an art teacher at our school, so I'm it and honestly I'm a faker.  I've always done what I called "art," but truthfully I was teaching how to follow directions, cut, and glue.  There's definitely a place for those skills, but never once did I need to talk about shading, warm and cool colors, perspective, etc.  Even though we did some cute and unique projects, my kids didn't really fine tune their artistic talents.  I wanted something different but basically fear of teaching art and a lack of ideas paralyzed me.


Well, this year I decided to take the plunge.  Sometimes that's the only way to make things happen.  I tracked down some works of elementary art on Pinterest.  Here's the link to my Pinterest art board.  http://pinterest.com/niketam/art-for-the-gallery/ I got excited about the possibilities and thought that maybe, just maybe, I could pull this off.  I also got lucky.  My amazingly talented artistic niece, Brittney, volunteered to help teach.  So far we've done two lessons, and our final products look very near the examples on Pinterest.  I've included the pinterest links as proof.  There's also a picture of my lovely niece Britt.

http://pinterest.com/pin/135671007494095090/

http://pinterest.com/pin/135671007494119076/

I realize that Britt won't be available to teach art in my room forever, but I'm fairly confident that after watching her teach these two lessons, that I could, for the most part, pull it off in the future.  It's really unfortunate that fear got in my way for so long.  How often is that the case?  Whether it's art, writing workshop, MTI math, or some other something that we know will benefit our kids, sometimes the only way to make it happen is to jump right into the deep end and rely on the knowledge of an expert to help us find our way.


I'd love to share a few art teacher blogs that I've stumbled across.  They are full of great projects that are doable and even come with instructions.  Jump on in!  


http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/
http://teachkidsart.blogspot.com/
http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/

P.S. Even though I love these new artsy pieces, I still have my favorite cutting and glueing projects that I'll probably never let go of!