Finishing up my journey at The ZACC...

The   Well, yesterday was my final day as an intern at The ZACC, and it was absolutely wonderful!

We continued out watercolor paintings as some of the kiddos needed to finish up their works or even start them up because they had missed the previous week; and, these paintings are looking absolutely amazing! They have been loving this unit so far, and are even more excited to see what they will do with this unit of painting in the weeks to come. 

As some of the students finished their pieces sooner than others, we did have different activities available for them which included free draw and working on some signs for a contest that The ZACC was recently entered in! 

Missoula Federal Credit Union is currently hosting a contest amongst seven nonprofit organizations in the Missoula area, and the organization that is voted the winner will be receiving a huge donation from Missoula Federal Credit Union! When we told the kiddos about this opportunity, it's safe to say they were incredibly excited to hear about this, and we asked them if they would like to help with promoting The ZACC by making some "Vote For The ZACC" signs and posters, which they were more than happy to do. So, using a crayon melter, they all made some incredible signs! 

They had so much fun posing for the camera, which is pretty obvious from the photos; so we took different pictures of them displaying their signs and posters and will be using them to help promote The ZACC in this competition! 

As this journey is coming to an end for me, I truly couldn't have been happier with this experience as a whole. I learned so much from working with the kids, working with my work supervisor Linds, and working with my cooperating teacher, Karlene. 

They all have taught me so much in so many different ways. Working with all these kids taught me how to work with students in a different environment and on a different level than what you would usually expect in an art classroom, they taught me that no matter the age, children will always surprise you with the amount of knowledge they have and can obtain from learning. 

Each of these kids took to learning these art techniques differently, and each and everyone of them rose to the occasion in such an amazing way, I'm incredibly proud of them. While working with my work supervisor, I learned how to work in a new environment and further develop my skills of communication, diligence, time management and so much more! Working with Linds was so much fun, she was an incredibly woman to help and intern for, and I enjoyed every minute I had at The ZACC because she gave me this opportunity. And finally, working with Karlene was great! I felt that we worked really well together and truly utilized the co-teaching method. Even though she was the lead teacher in the classroom, she made me feel like her equal, not just an assistant to her, which made me feel even so much more comfortable throughout this entire experience! 

I have loved working at The ZACC so much, that I plan on continuing as a volunteer this summer with their different summer camps and with other opportunities available to me through them. I'm excited to continue my work as a volunteer with them, I feel that I will continue to only enhance my learning and teaching skills with this, and that this experience as a whole is something that I will truly never forget and always be thankful for! 

I will be continuing with this after school program until our student work show on June 10th, just as a volunteer rather than an intern, but I'm so excited to finish this unit with the kids, they all have incredible potential in the art world and I'm so happy I get to work with them just a little bit longer at least. With that being said, I know it will be hard to finally say goodbye to them when I do, but even with that goodbye, I can still be very thankful for such a wonderful and enlightening experience I have had whole working with all of them! 

Beginning to wrap things up at The ZACC...

With this week's experience at The ZACC as an intern, we began our new unit of Painting Explosion with our students! With this unit we have a smaller group of students, only about 7 in this unit rather than the 12-14 we have had periously, but everyone that is in this unit has worked with us previously so they are all familiar faces for us! Which makes it even more enjoyable for everyone! 

After talking with Karleen before our after school program actually started, she informed me how after the previous drawing unit, a critique that was given by many of the parents was using more technical aspects with what their children are learning in our class. Their parents would like to see them utilizing different techniques and skills they are being taught through their child's artwork, although they love seeing their students utilize their creativity in their art works, they also want to make sure they are learning new lessons, which is very understandable. With all that, I just want to make sure they students still feel that they are being creative freedom in certain aspects because in my opinion, as an art educator, creative freedom is incredibly important in the classroom. 

With all that being said, we began a new project that surrounds the idea of watercolor paintings. This particular project will be displayed at the End of the School Year show, which the students participating in both Tuesday's and Thursday's after school programs will be displaying different works from their units at The ZACC for an entire month! The opening night will be on June 10th and our students are so incredibly excited for this opportunity! 

They are currently in the process of doing a collaborative work with a partner where one of them is creating the upper part of a figure and the other is creating the lower half of the same figure and putting them together to make a whole. We partnered our students up instead of having them choose their own partners, and it is turning out to be a great experience for them so far. They learned the introductory techniques of watercolor painting, how to create a wash of a color by utilizing more water than paint in their works and developing a big idea by working together to decide the best plan of action for their paintings. 

As of today, they sketched out their ideas and have begun their backgrounds, some are a little further than others with their paintings, but we will be continuing this project onto next week. We want our students to work incredibly hard with these pieces since these are the ones that have been chosen to be displayed at the end of the year show, and we cannot wait to see how they all turn out! 

Stay tuned for next week, and see the finished products!