VCUarts Art Education Student Teacher Blog

Kindergartners started out their unit of illustrated song-books and media exploration with oil resist watercolor paintings inspired by the book, Baby Beluga by Raffi, illustrated by Ashley Wolff. We read and sang Baby Beluga along with Raffi’s recording. The students loved to sing along with me – some even danced! After reading and singing, kindergartners learned […]

As fourth grade entered into a unit about abstract expressionist art, the students delved deeply into the element of color and its ability to express emotion. In groups, students brainstormed extensive lists of emotion words. Then, independently, they considered many examples of monochromatic images, assigning an emotion they associated with each image to create their […]

1st grade read “The Dot” and discussed what encouragement looks like. We talked about all the different people who can encourage us (family, friends, teachers, and even pets!) and then they made drawings of these people (or pets). One student even drew me encouraging him! That’s the Mona Lisa in the background! Then, we talked […]

I have never taught clay before, so I made it a goal of mine to do clay during my elementary placement. I’m learning a lot about clay management and how to operate a kiln. A big challenge for me is staying on top of the kiln schedule. I have five 4th grade classes and all […]

As a weaver myself, I was excited to teach weaving to my 5th grade students. It’s a tricky skill, especially the set up, but so rewarding when you get the hang of it. Every time I teach it, there’s a few students that pick it up very quickly and there’s some students that really struggle […]

I taught a 1-day lesson with 5th grade that was very successful and fun. Something I struggled with during my placement is having a hook in the beginning of teaching my lessons. “How will I engage my students in wanting to make this project?” With this Shibori project, I finally achieved hooking my students in […]

For my 3rd grade classes, I had a bit of a challenge with my students following my exact instructions for how to make their artwork. The assignment was to make a stained glass story using transparencies, tissue paper, and mod podge. I very clearly broke down and stressed to each class how to paint the […]

At the beginning of my lesson for Kindergarten, I struggled a lot with simplifying everything I taught. I had to breakdown my lesson to its simplest form. I realized the language I used with my students was too advanced and not clear or concise enough for them. Lastly, I learned that a quarter of my […]

Over the course of three weeks, 2nd grade students focused on texture and overlapping to create an imagined natural landscape scene. First, students learned about texture by creating rubbings with crayon and watercolor resist to explore different textures and color combinations. Students then used the textured paper to collage different parts of a landscape scene together. […]

Third graders are creating thrilling comics inspired by Edvard Grieg’s narrative orchestral piece, “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from the Peer Gynt Suite. We looked at some comic artists, some familiar and some new, including Stan Lee, Bill Watterson, Yumi Sakugawa, Sarah Anderson, Liz Climo, and Christopher Grady. The students learned about the […]