Let's Act!

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For the past few weeks we've been focusing on drama in my arts class. I never realized how many ways you can incorporate drama in the classroom. My favorite activity was when we had to act out a scene from a book. We all put our own spin on the scenes and acted them out in different ways. I loved that almost all of us incorporated music into our scenes. One of my favorite educators, Ron Clark, told of a story when his students just, absolutely, were not into a chapter book that they were required to read. He made the book come alive by creating a murder mystery in a mansion complete with fake blooood [lol]. After that the kids waned to read the book everyday. You can also make books come alive in smaller ways like, bringing in food from the book, having the students or community volunteers act out the characters, and incorporating sound effects, music, and visual effects like fog machines. Making learning fun and an engaging experience is why I went into teaching. I want to completely immerse my students in learning and help them to become successful responsible citizens in their communities.

Flex Zone

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When it comes to teaching I am not spontaneous. I like to be meticulously planned and know exactly what I’m going to say and do. With that being said, I don’t like surprise lessons. When I taught my first mini lesson in my cooperating teacher’s classroom I was so nervous. I knew we were going to start taking over some of the small teaching responsibilities that my teacher does, but she hadn't told us about the specifics of the lessons we were going to have to teach. When we arrived on a Tuesday morning, my teacher had laid out the lessons we were supposed to teach in a few hours. Of course I start to freak out because, like I said earlier, I don’t like to teach if I’m not prepared. We had some time to prep for the lesson, and as I looked over it, the content that I was teaching was not as hard as I was making it out to be. As my peer taught, I observed her and saw how comfortable she was with teaching her part of the lesson, and knew that my part of the lesson would also go smoothly. I reviewed the material, knew what content I was teaching and what I wanted the students to come away with.

One thing I noticed while teaching was that sometimes you go into a lesson knowing everything you want to say, what you want to get across, and how you’re going to do that, but it ends up changing half way through the lesson when you see what the students understand and what they are struggling with. When I was planning the lesson I hadn't thought about students responses and them backing up their answer with text evidence, but as I went through the lesson that popped into my mind to have them practice the skill of supporting their answer, a skill that is so valuable nowadays for students.

As a teacher I will have to be flexible. Most of the lessons that I teach, will be planned explicitly, but sometimes lessons will come up that I haven’t planned for, and I will just have to go with the flow. Also sometimes students will be so into a lesson that they won't want to stop. I will have to adjust an know when to end a lesson and know when to allow my students to continue working. Teaching is all about flexibility. 

Keep Calm and Buy Candy Grams

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Every year, at the end of the school year, the fifth grade students at my school go to a local camp for a camping trip. The students are able to go with minimal cost to their parents, in part due to a candy gram fundraiser the 4/5 teachers and PTO sponsor every year. In my field placement this semester, I was able to see how to run a successful fundraiser at a school, which is important to me because I plan to integrate fundraising into my future classroom.

A lot of work goes into selling candy grams. To begin this process my teacher did a social studies lesson on the industrial revolution. The students were told they had to make candy grams, and were given the supplies to make them, but were given no other rules. The students began making the candy grams and the teacher timed to see how many they got done in a certain time period. After the time expired the teacher counted them up and recorded the number that was made. She then asked the students if they could figure out another way to d make the candy grams that could go faster. The students assembled into an assembly line where each person had a job, and greatly increased their output. My teacher then tied that into the industrial revolution and had them watch a short clip about assembly lines. This is another example of how my teacher brings concept concepts down to her students more concrete level.

After the students made the initial candy grams in the lesson, everyday for a week, different fifth graders would come down to where we were selling candy grams and put additional ones together. At the end of the day they would take all the candy grams that had been filled out and deliver them to the classrooms.

I loved the concept of this project because it taught students social studies content and taught them to work for what they want, which is an invaluable lesson in life. As a teacher, I will strive to integrate innovative, concrete, lessons into my curriculum. Innovative lessons give students an experience that they will remember their whole lives.

What Do They Know?

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One thing I know for sure in teaching is that you have to use formative assessment to see where your students are and what areas they are struggling in. If you just give the students summative assessments they won't have a chance to improve. My cooperating teacher uses many innovative assessment tools in her classroom. One of my favorite assessment tools is Kahoot. On Kahoot.it you can create quizzes that the students can answer using their chromebooks or whatever computer system they have in the classroom. The system is similar to a polling system and will show when all students have answered, and also show how the students have answered but not connect the responses to a name. However, as a teacher, the program gives you detailed reports on how your students answer and what areas you may need to work on with your students still. My teacher has used Kahoot.it in all different subjects from math to social studies and the students truly enjoy it because it feels like a game and not an assessment. 

You can find this assessment tool on: https://getkahoot.com/
...and it's FREE!

We are Family!

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I've never had the opportunity to work in a non-inner city school and the differences in the student behavior are startling. The students are so well behaved in my field classroom. They are polite, they listen, and they follow the teacher’s directions quickly. Even the students who have emotional and mental issues all follow classroom procedures. However, when I had the opportunity to speak to the teacher, she told me about all she had done to build a positive community, or family as she likes to call it, in her classroom. She emphasized to the students to look out for their peers and instilled in them that they are all important, and the classroom would not run smoothly without them. I wonder if the student behavior has more to do with procedures being established early and a positive classroom environment being built where the students feel safe to learn and share and want to be an integral part of keeping their classroom running smoothly, then where the students come from and their upbringing, or is it a mixture of both? I would like to see how some of the other classes run in the school to see if most of the children behave like this or if this class is an anomaly. 

One thing I know for sure is that student behavior can negatively or positively effect a teacher’s ability to teach. In some of my other field placements, the teacher could barely make it through a lesson without multiple disruptions. When observing my cooperating teacher teach, I notice that she almost always makes it through all of her lessons without any disruptions. When the students are attentive and engaged, you get to do more as a teacher, and can do more activities that are hands on and fun. 

You Gotta Know Your Stuff to Teach It.

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In order to be an effective teacher you must know your content. I've taught lessons before where I wasn't completely sure of the content I was teaching and the lesson bombed. Students can sense when you’re standing on a shaky foundation. Knowing your content makes lessons run much more smoothly. My cooperating teacher KNOWS her content. All of her lessons move seamlessly because the students trust her to teach them. Whenever they have a question she’s anticipated it and knows how to answer, and if she doesn't, she will get back to the students with an answer as soon as possible. In social studies class we were asked what we were most worried about in teaching social studies. I mentioned that I was worried about teaching the actual content. I’m no history expert. There are concepts that we will be expected to teach that I left back in high school. I asked my teacher how she dealt with this issue. She let me know that a lot of hard work went into her studying content, refreshing her memory, and planning effective lessons. However, the work is worth it. Having that peace of mind that you know the purpose of your lesson and what you want your students to come away with.

When I am planning my lessons, I will focus on knowing exactly what I want my students to learn, and how I want them to get there. I will pay close attention to the content I want to teach, and try to reacquaint myself with the content before I try teaching it to my students.

Whats Happening in Field... [Let's Collaborate]

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I always get a little nervous when I have to teach. It feels like there is so much pressure especially, when I am being observed by my cooperating teacher and my supervisor. However, this time was a bit different. My cooperating teacher, from the beginning of the semester, has made me feel at home in her classroom and assured me she’s not judging me, she just looking for ways she can help me improve my teaching, and that is awesome. She takes the time to sit down with my peer and I and tell us about things we did great and things that we can work on to improve. I feel like that is the type of relationship a pre-service teacher and a cooperating teacher should have.

It’s always weird trying to plan a lesson and collaborating with someone else. We all have different time tables and work at different rates. Some want to get the lessons written up right away, and people like me, like to take our time in writing a lesson. Collaborating with my peers from the university gave me a glimpse at what it’s going to be like collaborating with my peers in the field. Even though sometimes it’s hard to collaborate, if you have a good team it’s a great experience, because most of the times, two heads are better than one. The lessons my peers and I came up with this semester have been some of the best and authentic lessons, and social studies is quickly becoming one of my favorite subjects to teach.
Cool links about collaborating with your peers:
https://www.teachingchannel.org/blog/2014/07/18/power-of-teacher-collaboration-nea/
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/teacher-collaboration-strategies-ben-johnson

Whats Happening in Field...

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I had the chance to do lunch room duty with my teacher. Since I've been in a variety of lunchrooms, due to our field placements, I was able to compare and contrast some of the other schools I've been to compared to the school I’m in now. In my experience I've been in lunch rooms that are very quiet and some that are moderately quiet. I've also seen lunchroom staff that are kind and supporting, and some that are mean, and seem like they would rather they be anywhere but in the lunchroom.  My schools lunchroom is like none I've ever seen before. The students are lively and animated. They are allowed to have fun at lunch, which I believe is highly important. Lunch time is one of the most cherished times in the day where students talk is not restrained by educational bounds. Students at my school get to experience this fully. I wish every child could have lunch like this.

Another area of the day that is awesome is recess. My school has a beautiful, massive, playground that the students take full advantage of. It’s nice to have such a large playground because all of the students and individual groups can have a place where they can get away with their friends. In school you’re forced to interact with your classmates even if you don’t like them, and recess is a time the students can get away from that. Recess is also one of those times during the day when students are allowed to talk freely and interact with their peers without teacher direction, and like I said earlier, this is of the utmost importance.

I think it all comes down to kids being allowed to be kids. They need time when they can just be free. I hope whatever school I teach at, can just allow children to be children. Also lunch and recess is informally connected to social studies education. This is a time when students are learning how to interact with each other. Something that will prepare them to be responsible citizens.

SZA Pop Art

For my fourth and final art project I decided to do an art project featuring pop art. When you hear the words pop art, one name comes to mind, Andy Warhol. Andy Warhol created many iconic images during his career. 

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Though I've seen images like these over and over I never really had a clear idea of what pop art really was. Pop art is defined as art that uses elements of popular culture, such as magazines, movies,popular music, and even bottles and cans. Armed with that definition, I took to Tumblr to look up images of pop art that were outside the typical Andy Warhol images.

When browsing on Tumblr, I found and image I fell in love with of Audrey Hepburn by Kayla Lidsey who focuses on gold pop art.

Source Kayla Lindsey Haus of Gold

Naturally I love gold, and I wanted to somehow incorporate it into my art piece. 

I still wanted to connect my piece somehow to Andy Warhol, and his collaboration with Basquiat kept popping into my mind.

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Basquiat was known for having a crown in some of his pieces, and I decided I wanted to use that crown some where in my piece.

From there, I got to thinking about natural hair, and how in the natural hair community we sometimes call our hair our crowns. When I think of a beautiful crown of hair, one person comes to mind, one of my favorite artist SZA.

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From there I had everything I needed to create my pop art. I wanted to keep it simple since my other projects had been more complex. I found a gold paint marker I could use for the crown, and decided to use one of the artist quotes, "kind of average with queen qualities", that I love to complete my art piece. 

In the end the piece turned out well, and I feel like its something that truly represents me and the things I stand for. I had so much fun creating art and I learned a lot about myself and the creative process.

Cool links for teaching about pop art and great examples:

https://www.pinterest.com/artgirl67/art-lesson-ideas-pop-art/ 

http://www.scholastic.com/browse/lessonplan.jsp?id=1483

http://www.ducksters.com/history/art/pop_art.php

http://artsmarts4kids.blogspot.com/2008/09/andy-warhol.html

Chandelier [Multimedia Art]

For my third visual art project I decided to focus on multimedia art. When I first saw the word multimedia, I thought it meant incorporating technology into art. However, when I looked up the definition I found that it actually means incorporating more than one medium of art into your project. When I learned of this definition I knew exactly what I wanted to do! One of my favorite artist is Kara Walker who is best known for her “cut-paper silhouettes” that address “America's racial and gender tensions”. 

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I remember the first time I saw a video about her art. I was in awe of the simple, but moving, silhouettes she created. I noticed that in some of her art she incorporated her silhouettes with moving pictures that enhance her art work. 

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For my project I decided to make a cut silhouette and incorporate it with music. 

When I started this project I had just watched the Grammy’s and I fell in love with the artist Sia. I had heard her songs before but after I saw her perform, I looked up her story and found out for years she had been struggling with depression. This brought new light and a new appreciation to her artistry. I also have struggled with depression over the years and I found myself relating to her song chandelier especially the lyrics in the chorus of her song:

“I'm gonna swing from the chandelier, from the chandelier
I'm gonna live like tomorrow doesn't exist
Like it doesn't exist
I'm gonna fly like a bird through the night, feel my tears as they dry

I'm gonna swing from the chandelier, from the chandelier
But I'm holding on for dear life, won't look down won't open my eyes”

I wanted to depict that feeling in my artwork, that longing to live life on the edge. That adrenaline rush of living your life to the fullest.

I began my art piece by drawing a chandelier, free hand, on black construction paper. After drawing I began cutting out my work with scissors. After cutting out my work I glued it down to white paper, and to finish off my project, I traced and cut out images of my hand reaching for the chandelier and glued them on. If I were  to display my art piece I would have the song Chandelier playing with it.

One thing I would do differently is to cut out my work with an exacto knife. I feel that would give me more control over my cutting. Also I would use a different martial to draw with, something that would not be so noticeable in the end. I really enjoyed creating the silhouette. It has a sort of complex simplicity about it. If I were to introduce Kara Walker and silhouettes to my students I would have them to work together as a class to represent one of the events they were studying in history as a silhouette and incorporate another medium of art like acting, signing, or poetry to describe the piece they created.

Cool links about the artist I featured:

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/kara-walker

http://learn.walkerart.org/karawalker

All About the Bill of Rights

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For our last social studies lesson, my students learned all about the bill of rights. For this lesson we focused on these standards:

5.1.16 Describe the origins and drafting of the Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791

5.2.5 Describe and give examples of individual rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

We began the lesson by telling our students that my colleague and I had been discussing our cooperating teachers rules and realized we didn't totally agree with them and decided to come up with our own rules for social studies class. We passed out our new rules and told the students that the rules would be in affect until 2:00 when social studies class is over. Some of the rules benefited the students and some of the rules didn't. Some of the students were VERY happy with the rules and some of the students didn't particularly like what we came up with for them. 

In all actuality we only let the new rules be in affect for 5-7 minutes before bringing the class back together to discuss how they felt about these rules. Some students, like I mentioned earlier were very happy with the rules while some thought the rules were unfair. We connected these feelings to how some of the colonist felt when the constitution was written and how the Bill of Rights was needed to give everyone personal rights and freedoms. Again, we tried to connect the abstract concept in social studies to our student real life. The students came away from this activity with a personal connection to the concept of the Bill of Rights.

After the students discussed their opinions we watched a video a group of students had made detailing the Bill of Rights and putting it to the tune of Taylor Swifts hit song "Shake it Off". 

 The students really enjoyed this video, and it helped them make connections to the Bill of Rights when we discussed it in more detail in the next part of our lesson.

After the video we went through the Bill of Rights in kid friendly language, and the students were instructed to write down a phrase that reminded them of each amendment or to draw a picture. This helped the students gain an even deeper understanding of the amendments. It was so funny when we talked about the right to bear arms. Some of the students jumped right in and started drawing weapons other students looked around unsure and asked if it was okay to draw a weapon.  The principal came in and was looking at the students work and all I could think of was the weapons on their papers, but it all turned out fine. If nothing else they got a mental picture of what that amendment and right is all about.

To end the lesson the students wrote thank you letters to the founding fathers, thanking them for their most cherished right. In the end I think the students grasped the concept we were trying to teach them and gained an understanding of the Bill of Rights and personal freedoms.

I really enjoyed teaching these social studies lessons, and social studies has become one of my favorite subjects to teach.

Whose Side Are You On?

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For my next lesson we focused on the preamble and our personal rights and freedoms. The standard we focused on was:

For this lesson we really wanted to get the students to understand that we all have rights and the rights and freedoms we have were highly important to the founding fathers.

To begin the lesson we discussed what the students knew about the preamble, defined what the preamble was for the students, and discussed how personal rights and freedoms were important to the men that founded the country. 

We then asked the students what they thought happens when their personal rights and freedoms interfere with someone elses. We told the students that we would watch a video, that might be the answer to the question we posed. We asked the students to pay close attention to the different positions in the clip, and to think what side of the issue they would be on.

We played a news clip from the Today Show for them on a student with peanut allergy, how her allergy was effecting the other students in the school, and what opinions different parents, students, and experts had on the issue. The video can be found here:

Peanut Allergy Video

After the video we had the students pick a side of the argument, and fill out a graphic organizer that would help them construct an argument either agreeing with the child with peanut allergy parents or with the other parents in the video. We found a very helpful graphic organizer from Mrs. London's teacher resource blog that can be found here:

Mrs. London Teaching Resource Blog

The graphic organizer really helped organize the students thoughts, and allowed them to reflect on the video and choose what side of the issue they were on.

After feeling out the graphic organizer the students chose to go to one side of the room if they agreed with the child with peanut allergies parents or the other side if they agreed with the other students parents. The students that remained undecided stayed in the middle of the room, and were allowed to listen to the other students arguments on the issue, and pick a side when they were ready.

The debate went amazing, their were passionate students on both sides of the debate, and the students were allowed to move to either side as their opinions changed on the issue. 

After the students debated, we reviewed what the preamble was and why it was important to our personal rights and the constitution.

This lesson was highly engaging and the students were still talking about it even after our class was over.

For my last social studies lesson, the students will be focusing on the bill or rights, and how the constitution wasn't perfect at first and needed some changes so everyone could have the personal freedoms and liberties they deserve.

We've Landed on a Deserted Island... Now What?

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Recently I taught my first lesson in the field, which happened to be a social studies lesson on the constitution. The social studies standard we focused on was:

5.1.15 Explain why the United States Constitution was created in 1787 and how it established a stronger union among the original 13 states by making it the supreme law of the land. Identify people who were involved in its development.

I've learned over and over again in class that one of the most important things in teaching a social studies lesson is making the lesson as authentic as possible so the students will remember the concept and the experience for years to come. Social studies in elementary school is really about laying the foundation for social studies in middle school and high school and establishing a love, appreciation, and base knowledge with the content. 

In order to make this a memorable experience, we decided to do a simulation with the students of landing on a deserted island that they will never be rescued from. From the minute the students walked into the classroom we welcomed them like they were getting on an airplane. If I did this lesson again I would depict an airplane scene on the smart board, and maybe even serve them small snacks. One thing we did that made it memorable was to include airplane crash sounds from YouTube:

Plane Crash Sounds

This start of the lesson really set the scene for the students, and got them interested in the core of the lesson establishing a government from scratch.

After the plane crashed, we told the students that everybody survived, and asked them what their next steps would be. They immediately stated telling us about activities they would do to meet their basic needs so they could survive like making weapons, hunting, and making shelter. 

We introduced scenarios to the students that would get them talking more on the lines of creating a government. We asked them what would they do if someone stole the coconuts they collected and from that question they came up with the idea of creating some kind of government. 

The students had an election, elected a president, and decided they needed a vice president, which the president would choose. The president and vice president elected members to draft a constitution which would include the laws of the island. 

However, all the students were not happy with how the government was run and decided to try and impeach the president. Unfortunately we ran out of time.

To wrap up the lesson we asked the students questions to try and get them to connect the simulation to how the colonist formed the constitution.

The lesson the students participated in was highly engaging, and some of them even went home and continued to plan for the government on the island. 

These are the kinds of experiences our students need in social studies, and I hope to plan the majority of my lessons in the future to be just as engaging.

Sites with lesson plans and resources for teaching the constitution:
http://www.archives.gov/legislative/resources/education/constitution/
http://www.civiced.org/resources/curriculum/constitution-day-and-citizenship-day
http://constitutioncenter.org/learn/educational-resources/lesson-plans
https://www.teachervision.com/us-constitution/teacher-resources/33630.html

Artifacts, Trade Fairs, and Shoe boxes...oh my!

Teaching social studies can be difficult. Social studies is filled with abstract concepts and people and events that are long gone. Sometimes our students can have a hard time identifying with these concepts because they don't see them as relateable to their lives. In our social studies class we participated in activities that can make these weird, abstract, concepts more concrete in our students lives.

One of the activities we did was to find artifacts that relate to a standard from history. The standard I chose was:

5.1.13 Identify contributions of women and minorities during the American Revolution. Examples: Abigail Adams, Martha Washington, Mercy Otis Warren, Molly Pitcher, Phillis Wheatley, Deborah Sampson, James Armistead and Joseph Brant

It was awesome learning about some of the heroes of the revolutionary war period that are rarely talked about. The artifacts I chose are all things that could be printed out that the students could actually interact with or could be found using Google maps and visited by taking a virtual field trip. These are some of the artifacts I found:

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I also enjoyed writing the lesson for the trade fair. My lesson plan focused on this standard:

4.4.3 Explain how both parties can benefit from trade* and give examples of how people in Indiana engaged in trade in different time periods.

* trade: the voluntary exchange of goods or services

and specifically on the first part of the standard. My lesson would be focused on getting the students to understand that trade should benefit both parties involved. I would begin the lesson by tying to trade some useless item for something of importance. Hopefully this exercise will get the students thinking about why they wouldn't want to trade something of importance for something useless. I will then ask them questions to help cement the the point in their mind and then actually share with them the point of the lesson. After the students learn about trade being beneficial to both parties, the students will practice their trading skills through a trading game where each student is given different scenarios detailing who they are, what their needs are, and what they have to trade.

Lastly, we did a shoe box activity where we had to pick a social studies standard that focused on immigration or movement. The standard I chose was:

4.3.10 Identify immigration patterns and describe the impact diverse ethnic and cultural groups has had and has on Indiana.

·         E pluribus Unum (out of many, one) http://greatseal.com/mottoes/unum.html

·         Ellis Island was opened (January 1, 1892) during the administration of President Benjamin Harrison (Indiana’s only President) http://www.history.com/topics/ellis-island

If I was doing this with my students I would have them focus on two questions when packing their shoe boxes:

If you had to leave your home country what five things would you bring with you that represent your culture? What things would you leave behind?

For myself I chose: music, my favorite tv show, pictures of my family, a journal of my writings, and my favorite books. All of these tell about me as a person, and most of them tell about some aspect of Black American culture.

All of these activities I would integrate into my classroom to help my students make a more authentic connection to social studies content.

A great site with lessons on trade:
http://www.globalenvision.org/forteachers/27/1229

Abstract Art

Abstract Art Source

ABSTRACT ART

For my next art project I decided to focus on abstract art. I love abstract art because it gives you the freedom to create literally whatever you want. At least that’s what I thought when I began this process. However, through my research I found that abstract art is defined as art that does not depict a person, place or thing in the natural world, even in an extremely distorted or exaggerated way.  I began the process of creating my art by first looking at multiple examples of abstract art. I saw many examples, but the ones that stood out to me the most were those that incorporated bright, bold colors, and textures. I decided to incorporate this into my painting.

Art Inspiration Source

Art Inspiration Source

Art Inspiration Source

My piece is about life. As babies, we are born as a pure clean slate. However, the moment we enter the world, its influence starts to affect us. I used the white space to represent innocence and the pink to represent us as humans. As life goes on you are presented with many different challenges in life, but you also have many triumphs. There are also days that aren’t challenging or triumphant. In my painting I used the black to represent the challenges, ombre grey to represent the just regular days, and the gold glitter to represent the happy times in your life. I also wanted to use glitter to add texture to my painting.

 I really enjoyed the process of creating this painting. One joy I found during this process was the freedom in creating this type of art. I had a backstory for my piece, but you don’t need any kind of story to do abstract art. You can just do. One negative of the process was not having the subjects in the art represent something from reality. I like for the subjects in my painting to represent reality. It was hard not to paint actual figures.

Through working with abstract art, I learned that painting doesn’t always have to have an elaborate story to represent it. It can sometimes just be and that is beautiful.

A site with great abstract art lessons:
http://www.teachkidsart.net/tag/abstract-art/

Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia o’keeffe

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My first art project this semester focused on the fabulous artist Georgia O'keeffe. According to Wikipedia she was best known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. 

I fell in love with the works of Georgia O'keeffe, and more than that, I fell in love with the artist herself. I found a quote by her that epitomizes how I want to live my life and inspired the works I created for this project. The quote stated, "I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free." 

Painting with water color has a sort of freedom to it. The colors mix and swirl with reckless abandon, but only if you want them too. Watercolor can also have structure to it. I found this to be true in a number of Gorgia's paintings. 

When conceptualizing my pieces I decided to focus on the difference in style between two of the different themes Georgia focused her work on, flowers and city scapes. I noticed in Georgia's flower paintings she featured more bright vibrant colors and free flowing lines, while in her city scapes paintings she focused on more dark colors and more structured lines. The flowers seemed more free and expressive while the city scapes seemed more dark, controlled, and restrictive. 

Georgia O'Keeffe Flower Painting

Georgia O'Keeffee City Scape Painting

I related how these painting made me feel to my own life experiences. Narrow beauty standards in the world can sometimes make you feel restricted like you have to fit into a certain mold. Life may sometimes seem dark when you feel like your not free to express yourself and be who you want to be. 

That how I felt when I felt pressured to have long hair. I felt restricted by all the beauty routines I had to go through in order to make my hair grow.

However when I decided to just do me, and be awesome at that, I felt a sense of freedom that I've never felt before! The same sense of freedom I feel when I view Gloria's flower paintings and read the inspiring quotes she blessed the world with.

I had so much fun researching Gloria and creating my art projects. I learned a lot about water color that I will one day share with my students. For example you need the correct type of paper to paint water color pictures and sometimes you need to be patient when creating, and give one layer a chance to dry before you start on the next. However, in the same breath, water color comes with a type of freedom that allows colors to take on a mind of their own and mix together to create exciting new colors!

I can't wait to tell you about my next project!

Here is a great site to help you teach water color:
http://www.incredibleart.org/files/water.htm