This is a wonderful post from http://www.fairydustteaching.blogspot.com/

Handwork, in the traditional sense, are activities such as sewing, darning, mending, embroidery, weaving and knitting.   One of my Waldorf mentors told me that handwork is deeply related to the development of morality.   Just watch a five year old sew!  It is magical!  But I also think that all acts of creation by the use of the hands is handwork!  Joseph Chilton Pearce said that the fingers were the eyes of the heart.   I loved this!   It is so true - I see children love the process of learning when they get hands-on and dig in!  Taking children away from hand-based activities, we take away a child's access to an education with heart.  Pencil and paper is not handwork - it is intellectual work.  This is not bad - it just isn’t what engages the heart.

Frank Wilson, in his book "The Hand: How It's Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture" traces the pivotal place of the human hand and the amazing opposable thumb in the evolution of the species.  The density of the nerve ending in the fingers is mind boggling.  When engaged in lively hand activities, the neural pathways of learning are laid down in the brain that will serve the child for the rest of their life! Until recent history, children were taught to plow, sow, weed, cultivate, harvest, grind, bake, care for the animals and more!  These were meaningful activities that contributed to the family.  Through the training of the hand, a deeper understanding of the world they lived in was forged. 

It is important in early childhood to provide the first experiences of basic human tasks such as wrapping, sewing, tying, knotting, decorating, painting, picking, shaping, drawing, stirring, rolling, building, constructing and so forth.  These are a child’s beginnings of using unskilled hands in experimentation and creative expression.  Truly, it is just play at this point.  But this play offers multiple opportunities for learning about the world, for constructing one’s own understanding and for developing skill.

Learning through the amazing and complex wisdom of the hands...

Studio Menus

I thought you might like to see a sample of menus I made for my students to use in their Studios. I have set up 6 studios for them to work at: Build, Paint, Study, Draw, Clay, Collage  Each studio has a variety of materials and inspirations.  I am using TAB (teaching for artistic behavior) ideas.  I have really enjoyed watching the students create this year. It's pretty amazing what they come up with!

 

Get your Glow On

At the start of the school day my student teacher and I were headed to the art room when one of our young students stopped us and said that there was a "glow on" our leaves.  I didn't know what he meant and asked him to show us. He was right! There was a glow on our leaves! The room was dark and the light was coming through the window in just the right way- it lit up the bag of leaves that my student teacher was using for a project. It was magical!

new building, new students, new schedule...

I just found out that I will have another building of students added to my schedule.
A while back I got a phone call from one of my friends saying that it was in the paper that my school district was going to share "Activity Teachers" with another local private school. Art is considered an "Activity" class, so my friend was wondering if I was going to have to teach at this school.  I hadn't heard a thing about it, so I assumed that there were some arrangements that didn't include me. Well, I was wrong. I got the call this morning. I have until tomorrow to decide if I want to bid into a general ed. classroom or stick with the art job. Next year the art position will have 4 buildings of students. The schedule will be primarily divided between 3 buildings.  The art teacher (maybe me) will be at each of the 3 buildings for 4 week rotations. At one building the first class period will be at the new school. So, for one month out of 3 I would have to travel daily. Each building will have 8 classes per day, most classes have about 28-29 students.
I'm really not sure whether to jump back into the classroom, or stick with teaching art.

Summer for Teachers

This is a photo of  a beautiful vine in my garden. I planted this last summer to replace a climbing rose that didn't do as well as I had hoped . In artwork, in gardening, in teaching, and in life sometimes things don't quite work out and you have to change plans :)

Summer is such a unique time for teachers. We idealistically have "time off", but realistically, it never feels like it! First of all, it's not like teachers have mucho bucks to do anything big... and I usually have classes to take, and I always have reading to do, plans to make, supplies to figure out, blah blah blah. I think about school all the time. I'm constantly thinking about how to improve my teaching, I can't turn it off just because it's summer. I have already started the teacher dreams- teachers, you know what I mean, where you dream that either your room is chaos or you don't know where anything is, or you are in the middle of some sort of ridiculous, anxiety ridden situation!
This summer I was hoping to have time to paint, draw, create, and improve my skills. I was hoping for lots of time in the garden. I was also hoping to organize things at home, and paint a room or two. I was hoping to finish making slipcovers... all the things I have no time for during the school year. I was mostly hoping for precious family time.
Well, luckily I have been on "vacation" because we have had lots of hospital and dr. visits for our parents. and even luckier, they all seem to be on the upswing now- but we have many more dr. visits ahead.
Plans rarely go as planned :) That's one of the things that make life so interesting, you never really know what's going to happen next. The classroom is like that too. You can plan, but you never really know what's going to happen. That challenge is part of what's fun about life, and about teaching. What are you going to do when things don't go as planned? How are you going to make the best of it? How are you going to use the situation and turn it around to have things go even better than you could have possibly planned?
Anyway, for any of you who do not know a teacher, and are thinking that we all spend our summers on the beach drinking slurpies- all I can say is... I WISH! ...maybe I will have a relaxing summer next year!

wonderment: fun and games

Clay portraits by elementary art students

This was the last week of art for one of the buildings I teach at. The kiddos got to take their "portfolios" home! I wanted to teach them some games they could play this summer, so we played a game with the art books (this can be played with any book) where one person is the "caller" and the rest of the players have to find whatever they call out.  For instance, one thing I told them to find was "portrait", and the first person to find a portrait in the book was the winner. We also had winning teams- when the whole team found a portrait they all won! Now, I have been talking about portraits all year and I was amazed how many of them still didn't know what to look for... depressing :( However, it's amazing what one game and a little competition can do! All of a sudden, after one game, they all seemed to know what a portrait was! What a great way to reinforce vocabulary.
The other game we played was a version of 4 corners. I put the colors of the rainbow around the room. Everyone had to go stand at a color. I made a dice that had all 6 colors on it, we rolled it, whatever color was on top was out. Everyone could choose a new color- we rolled again, etc. The last person in was the winner. Then the students made their own color dice so they could play the game at home this summer. The game was a big hit! Making the dice was a great 3-D project, it's a very difficult thing for some students to figure out how to make a cube from a flat piece of paper...
Lesson learned, note to self, I will definitely be playing more games with them next year. The proof is in the puddin' They definitely learn better when they are having fun!
Search Amazon.com for art games

wonderment: coloring/ basic needs

 

As I am watching my schoolchildren today I am struck by how many choose the stations where they get to fill in areas with color. Today's station choices include: chalk -landscapes, or finishing portraits; yarn -weavings; craypas -abstract line designs; paper strip constructs or weavings... I am trying to be intentionally aware of the choices they make, and considerate of what the draw is to that station. So many of the students choose the stations where they are coloring, whether it is with crayons, chalk, colored pencil, markers, or craypas. Perhaps they like the mindlessness of it, and the big results. They love the abstract designs where there is no pressure to create a likeness. I am really wondering if coloring fulfills some type of basic need? We need love, shelter, food.... and coloring!