GRACE Art

I am a GRACE Art docent, a volunteer position in the school. I started doing it last year when I received an email saying Trevor's 2nd grade class had no GRACE Art volunteer and would I be interested. Well, it sounded cool, but I am certainly no art expert and the whole thing seemed a tad daunting. Teach art to 2nd graders? Doing the art project sounded simple enough, but actually having a lesson plan tailored at a 6th grade level and teaching it at a second grade level? I have no college degree, I'm not a teacher. I'm always up for a challenge, though, so I decided to give it a try.

Let's just say I loved it! Ariel came with me and together we taught Trevor and his classmates about an artist, or an art style. I got to know the kids in Trevor's class, and I got to peek in on his teacher and how she taught in those few moments before and after I was in the class. At the end of the year, the kids all made pictures and told me what they liked best about GRACE Art. It surprised me at how much they remembered. In fact, (ok, I'll be admitting how horrible my memory is here), they remembered some art projects that Trevor had to refresh my memory on. I'll just say how I felt in a typical me sentence: It was so way cool!

Consequently, I was eager to teach GRACE Art this year. Neither Trevor nor Rachael's classes had docents so I ended up teaching both their classes. I just went this past week to teach Trevor's class about Piet Mondrian. I'm always very nervous when I go in. Public speaking, even to a classroom full of 8 year olds, has never been my forte. I get nervous, I forget what I am going to say and I speak too fast. But the wonderful thing about kids? They don't seem to notice. They get a change in their routine and they get to do an art project. That's my favorite part of the lesson. Getting out the paints and letting them create something to take home. By the time they were done last week, they had all created art that looked remarkably like Piet Mondrian's famous pieces.

I can't wait until I get to teach Rachael's class at the end of the month. GRACE Art is easily my favorite volunteer opportunity at the school. I enjoy everything I volunteer with, but there is something special about getting to know all the kid's classmates and doing something tangible with them that they can take home. If anyone has time to commit to teaching their child's class, GRACE is very rewarding. It doesn't take that much time. In fact, I spend probably 2 hours a month on GRACE Art. I spend some time looking over the curriculum at home in my spare time, then some time looking over the art cart in the school and one hour in the class teaching. The lesson plan is emailed to me every month. The art cart is by the library and contains everything I need to supplement the lesson. It has posters of art done by the artist and everything needed for the art project. I have never had a problem finding a time to teach and the teachers are very accommodating. Teaching something to kids might sound daunting to you, but it's not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. The kids are always excited to see me and are ready participants in the lesson. And they never know that, until I received the lesson plans, I didn't actually know that it was Piet Mondrian that did that art with the blocks of color.