Day One- Write Down EVERYTHING

And so it begins!

I arrived on Sunday night with excitement and some stashed tissues to kick off my first experience at aTi with an orientation and dinner.  I was one of the first to arrive and I am thankful because I immediately began to meet my fellow aTi participants.  Theresa, a fourth grade teacher who was brave enough to sign up for the oil painting workshop, was also early and I learned that she was also a new face to aTi.  I was surprised to find that the majority of aTi's participants for this session were returning from a previous year, and this only had me more excited for the experience I would have in the coming days. 

 At our dinner table, we met Leonard and Tara, both in the Kinetic Sculpture class.  Tara shared that she had come to aTi with an AEI grant, which I had not known existed.  She shared the process of how an artist in residence comes to your school 20 times over the course of a year to work with you and your students to complete a common goal or project, and the experience sounds amazing.  Along with the orientation we all shared, I also discovered that if I wasn't writing down each new idea when I was talking to the other participants, I would miss something!   

Leonard was a second-career art teacher after working in advertising and he had dove into the art education world head first.  He shared his previous experiences going to the Mural Arts Program at UArts in Philadelphia and shared his lesson ideas for Art cars, made out of foam core or papier-mâché, and his collaborative sticky note project he does with his middle school students.  Leonard shared that his inspiration for coming to aTi to take the Kinetic sculpture workshop came from his interest in incorporating steam into the classroom, and he showed us a video from the winter workshop he attended where he created "makey makey" projects.  In his video, he showed how anything that holds a charge can be used as a "makey makey" platform, and you could make instruments out of bananas or even stairs.  

I was thrilled to find that each idea he shared could be adapted for my new Exploring Art and Design class that was piloted last year.  The idea behind the Exploring Art and Design course is to integrate STEAM as well as the creation of both two and three dimensional work.  After writing note after note about inspirational artists to share with my students and ted talks that I could show my classes, I was so excited to begin my printmaking class with Eileen Foti the next day.

                                                  Watch the Makey Makey video here!