.................................................................................................................
Greetings everyone! My name is Bethany and my business partner's name is Orly and we are here to help you teach your kids art! We decided to start this blog to help moms like us who love their kids and love to do art projects, but need a little inspiration to get started. Orly and I have been teaching the history of art to preschoolers ages 3, 4, and 5 and are in the process of getting a book published in order to bring our hands-on art history lessons to you, our dear readers. So welcome to our blog!
I see I'm on the 'blogs we love' list:) Hoo Ray:) Thanks a lot, I'll be sure to place you on my blog roll as well. Thanks for becoming a follower on my blog!
ReplyDeleteCongrats on your new blog and thanks for including me on your list of blogs you love! I like your manifesto. There are times, as an art teacher in a public school, that following directions is a large part of what I do, but I try to present it in a framework of open-ended decision-making and creative thinking. Does that make sense?
ReplyDeletePhyl: I agree that as an art teacher you have to teach kids to follow directions. That was a statement against a particular art class in our area that is very popular that literally tells the kids each and every step of the painting including exactly where to draw the line, exactly what color to paint, etc- kind of like a paint by numbers class. When my kid came home with amazing artwork that was WAY beyond what he was capable of, I was shocked to find out this method of teaching art was very prevalent in our school district and it really frustrated me. When Orly and I decided to teach our own class we wanted to make sure the art the kids were creating was all their own, not a copy of someone else's art. With that said, of course a child has to learn to create within a defined project and set of rules, so long as their creativity is recognized.
ReplyDelete-Bethany
Thanks for the follow-up. If you go way back on my blog, you'll find that I posted a little diatribe against templates and tracers. It makes me crazy to think there are art teachers that use these so the kids' work will turn out "better". I follow a lot of blogs, but I've gotten more discerning after a lot of reading, and I no longer waste my time reading the blogs that teach art by tracing templates and who do everything as a directed drawing. It makes me crazy!
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, I hope you didn't think I was criticizing - I wasn't. As a matter of fact, when I chose a pre-school for my son (who is now about to graduate from college), the matching projects on the wall in one pre-school totally turned me off; they were 'perfect'. I chose the one with the glued together messes everywhere, and it was the right choice.
I look forward to seeing what you'll be putting on your blog!