My kindergarten students and I are finally falling into a good groove with our choice based art centers. They have been working with drawing, painting, collage, and building centers. (Photos of center arrangements and visuals coming soon.) It has been wonderful to see their ideas blossoming and their skills becoming more focused. It has also been a very valuable teaching lesson for me as well. I have always wanted to teach this way, but am surprised at how difficult it's been to break away from the cookie-cutter standard that we often expect of art programs designed for small children.
I'm looking forward to next year when I can roll out this program from day one with a lot of the guess-work out of the way. Luckily, this year's students really haven't noticed that they are essentially guinea pigs in this experiment.
We start each class with a "meeting" to discuss a new skill or art word. As I was wrapping up my demo at the start of a class this week, a boy in the front row raised his and asked, "Can we go play NOW?" For an instant I thought, "NO! This is ART class not PLAY time!" And then I came to my senses, and said, "Of course, go play...but use your artist brain." Here are some of their beautiful creations...
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