Examples from "Art Exploration: Masters and Apprentices" after school club, spring 2009

Master: Jackson Pollock

Apprentice: Henry Shugrue, age 7

Materials: tempera paint, marbles

Kids at Play

There are only two more weeks left in my "Art Exploration: Masters and Apprentices" after school club.  I am already scheduled to teach a sports/gym games club on Tuesdays.  I'm calling it "Kids at Play."  I was hoping to reorganize the ages because the second graders' coordination and motor skills are significantly more advanced than the kindergartners and first graders, but the groupings are set. 

I've made a list of games that I remember playing in gym class and have surveyed my son and his friends to include a few of their favorites.  I am also hoping to have hula hoops and jump ropes available for anyone who doesn't want to participate in the scheduled game.  If I learned nothing else from my art club, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley"!

Securing equipment and gym space for the club is going to be an additional challenge, though at least I won't have the tension of sharing a classroom as I did with the art class.  Unfortunately, despite my best efforts to maintain the room--and as a teacher who often "lent" her room to SAT courses and summer school classes, I was inordinately conscientious--she complained on an almost daily basis.  The worst part--she never once mentioned her complaints directly to me.  Instead, she complained to the after school coordinator.  There are few personality traits I find more annoying than this sort puerile passive-aggression.  

It has been such a long time since I posted.  I didn't think that I would continue this blog after I left my teaching position, but I still have my hand in teaching as a volunteer.  

Since my unofficial sabbatical began last June, I have been volunteering in my son's classroom two days a week.  Mostly I just help out where I'm needed during "Reader's Workshop".  I have a regular group of kids that I meet with to discuss aspects of their novels.  Sometimes I facilitate a creative project collaboration.

I have also been serving as Co-chair of the Enrichment Committee in my son's program.  In this role I have organized a number of whole-school assemblies: Tufts Treasure Trunk, David Zucker's Poetry in Motion, Infinities Chamber Ensemble's "Meet the Woodwinds with Peter & the Wolf", and The Roots Music Collective's "Roots of American Music".  In May, the 2-4 grades will attend a production of Charlotte's Web at the Wheelock Theater.  In February, The Amatuer Telescope Makers of Boston helped us host a "Star Party".  These events were an overwhelming success.  I hope I have the opportunity to continue this work next year.

I have also been volunteering after school teaching an art club for k-2 students.  I designed the program to introduce the students to famous artists and their styles and to provide them with an opportunity to explore various media in a safe and creative environment.  We read Peter J. Reynold's wonderful book Ish during the first class.  The kids then had a fun time identifying their Miro inspired line drawings as "flower-ish" or "dinosaur-ish."

Next week, I will teach my first sports club: Kids at Play.  This club combines traditional sports with favorite gym games: dodgeball, capture the flag, nuke 'em, pinball, etc.

Also, two days a week I have been leading a book group of 5/6 students.  We had a rich discussion of metaphor on Tuesday, and we finish the novel, The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich, tomorrow.  I am excited to see the students final assignment: "Design-Your-Own Homework."  A couple of the students are as perspicacious as any grade 9 student I have taught.

Finally, I am starting a book group at a retirement community in Randolph.  I am awating copies of our first read, Jodi Picoult's 19 Minutes.  While I did not like My Sister's Keeper or The Tenth Circle, I am optimistic about this story.