What A Few Kids Wrote About ArtAchieve Art Lessons
Recently a local elementary school teacher who uses ArtAchieve art lessons as her art curriculum invited me to be a special guest in her 6th grade class. During the hour and a half that I was there, I taught a lesson on using pencil shading to create a still life.
What fun to be in a real classroom again. It’s been a few decades since I was a 6th grade teacher myself, so it was instructive for me to be able to watch kids respond to my teaching - and to the art lessons you find on this site.
Students collaborated with me to create the still life arrangement we would draw. Here’s the arrangement, with student working on their drawings.
And here are a few of the drawings these kids created in the mere hour and a half we had together. Remember, these are kids whose only encounter with pencil shading had been ArtAchieve’s two free lessons on pencil shading in Level I!
While it was fun to teach the class, the most fun was getting a letter from each of the students in the class a few weeks later, all of them written in their best penmanship (The teacher prides herself in turning out students who have neat hand-writing, as you can see in these letters!). Of course, as you can expect, some of the students merely did the assignment and wrote me a kind thank you note, like this one.
However, most kids wrote more lengthy letters to tell me specific things they liked about the still life lesson and about ArtAchieve lessons in general. Making art is one of life’s pleasures, and one of the students had his own way of describing the fun of doing art, when he concluded his letter by saying, “It was so joyful to learn with you.”
Another, Rylan, liked the still life lesson because of the choices I had given the class. I had brought several objects we could have included in the still life, told the class stories about the objects, and had them collaborate to select and arrange the objects. Rylan also expressed the joy that he discovered in doing art. Here’s his letter.
Kai liked ArtAchieve because of the background information that came with each lesson.
Dylan also wrote about the fun he had had drawing the still life, and added that he liked the lessons at ArtAchieve because “I am a way better drawer than I was before.”
Finally, Manuel wrote that through the ArtAchieve videos they had been using, “You have taught me a lot of stuff this year. . . .and you are the most awesome art teacher ever.” (To be fair, I should add that for most students, this was also the FIRST art class they had ever had!).
He added that I should play basketball and be a center because I am so tall! When I read that, I was convinced that what these kids were writing was honest, and not what the teacher had told them to say!
Recently a local elementary school teacher who uses ArtAchieve art lessons as her art curriculum invited me to be a special guest in her 6th grade class. During the hour and a half that I was there, I taught a lesson on using pencil shading to create a still life.
What fun to be in a real classroom again. It’s been a few decades since I was a 6th grade teacher myself, so it was instructive for me to be able to watch kids respond to my teaching - and to the art lessons you find on this site.
Students collaborated with me to create the still life arrangement we would draw. Here’s the arrangement, with student working on their drawings.
And here are a few of the drawings these kids created in the mere hour and a half we had together. Remember, these are kids whose only encounter with pencil shading had been ArtAchieve’s two free lessons on pencil shading in Level I!
While it was fun to teach the class, the most fun was getting a letter from each of the students in the class a few weeks later, all of them written in their best penmanship (The teacher prides herself in turning out students who have neat hand-writing, as you can see in these letters!). Of course, as you can expect, some of the students merely did the assignment and wrote me a kind thank you note, like this one.
However, most kids wrote more lengthy letters to tell me specific things they liked about the still life lesson and about ArtAchieve lessons in general. Making art is one of life’s pleasures, and one of the students had his own way of describing the fun of doing art, when he concluded his letter by saying, “It was so joyful to learn with you.”
Another, Rylan, liked the still life lesson because of the choices I had given the class. I had brought several objects we could have included in the still life, told the class stories about the objects, and had them collaborate to select and arrange the objects. Rylan also expressed the joy that he discovered in doing art. Here’s his letter.
Kai liked ArtAchieve because of the background information that came with each lesson.
Dylan also wrote about the fun he had had drawing the still life, and added that he liked the lessons at ArtAchieve because “I am a way better drawer than I was before.”
Finally, Manuel wrote that through the ArtAchieve videos they had been using, “You have taught me a lot of stuff this year. . . .and you are the most awesome art teacher ever.” (To be fair, I should add that for most students, this was also the FIRST art class they had ever had!).
He added that I should play basketball and be a center because I am so tall! When I read that, I was convinced that what these kids were writing was honest, and not what the teacher had told them to say!
Recently a local elementary school teacher who uses ArtAchieve art lessons as her art curriculum invited me to be a special guest in her 6th grade class. During the hour and a half that I was there, I taught a lesson on using pencil shading to create a still life.
What fun to be in a real classroom again. It’s been a few decades since I was a 6th grade teacher myself, so it was instructive for me to be able to watch kids respond to my teaching - and to the art lessons you find on this site.
Students collaborated with me to create the still life arrangement we would draw. Here’s the arrangement, with student working on their drawings.
And here are a few of the drawings these kids created in the mere hour and a half we had together. Remember, these are kids whose only encounter with pencil shading had been ArtAchieve’s two free lessons on pencil shading in Level I!
While it was fun to teach the class, the most fun was getting a letter from each of the students in the class a few weeks later, all of them written in their best penmanship (The teacher prides herself in turning out students who have neat hand-writing, as you can see in these letters!). Of course, as you can expect, some of the students merely did the assignment and wrote me a kind thank you note, like this one.
However, most kids wrote more lengthy letters to tell me specific things they liked about the still life lesson and about ArtAchieve lessons in general. Making art is one of life’s pleasures, and one of the students had his own way of describing the fun of doing art, when he concluded his letter by saying, “It was so joyful to learn with you.”
Another, Rylan, liked the still life lesson because of the choices I had given the class. I had brought several objects we could have included in the still life, told the class stories about the objects, and had them collaborate to select and arrange the objects. Rylan also expressed the joy that he discovered in doing art. Here’s his letter.
Kai liked ArtAchieve because of the background information that came with each lesson.
Dylan also wrote about the fun he had had drawing the still life, and added that he liked the lessons at ArtAchieve because “I am a way better drawer than I was before.”
Finally, Manuel wrote that through the ArtAchieve videos they had been using, “You have taught me a lot of stuff this year. . . .and you are the most awesome art teacher ever.” (To be fair, I should add that for most students, this was also the FIRST art class they had ever had!).
He added that I should play basketball and be a center because I am so tall! When I read that, I was convinced that what these kids were writing was honest, and not what the teacher had told them to say!
