Ms. Liebel's Classroom: Preparing for Valentine's Day

I have a bit of a confession. I had a teacher moment today where I really made a big oops. In art I had prepared all these templates to create Valentine's monsters. I printed all the things off in different shades of red, purple, and pink. I was pretty excited and I thought the kids were just going to love this "pre-cut and prepared" lesson. I gave them each a paper bag and I could see it in their eyes they were stoked. Then I started to mention that we were going to create these Love Monsters. They got even more excited!!!! So I started to bring out the different heads, eyes, lips, etc to choose from and I saw all these confused looks on their faces. I could see it in their eyes that they didn't need a template to make a monster because they already had created them in their heads. I couldn't believe that I was about to limit their creativity with these templates! I quickly told them that they needed to come up with their own "creatures" and they were much happier. I gave my head a shake and was so thankful that these little kiddos were here to remind me of their powerful creative minds.

Here is a look into our atelier (artist studio) where the kids are welcome to come and use any of the supplies during their exploration times. The things in these jars are typically always stored away and only brought out at special times and used sparingly. Not in this classroom, these things and much more are always out for the children to use and explore. With my Reggio Emilia studies I have learned how important exploration is and if you put these things out and discuss with the students the "use within reason" rule they are actually amazing at respecting their own space. They have so much fun using these materials on all of their art-inspired creations. The felt markers are also all sorted (to the right) and that is for the students to choose from all the subtle nuances amongst the shades of colours.