Here, I made a sketchbook spread about my experience with third-grade art classes at Ravensworth Elementary School in Springfield, VA.
Materials
Crayola markers
Crayola colored pencils
Posca markers
Black pen
White gelly roll pen
Process
First, I created an outline for what I wanted my sketch to be. The left side included some of the activities I saw the kids do, such as cherry blossoms with vases, and clay pots with faces. Because Ravensworth has a "Spanish Immersion Program" due to the large Hispanic community, some kids' classes are taught in Spanish half of the day. Therefore, Mrs. Fortenberry included Día De Los Muertos sugar skulls decorations on her wall, which is I why I added those in my drawing. She also showed us the weaving of the older kids in her classroom, hence my patterns. Meanwhile, the right shows three kids that stood out to me most for what they said! I colored their skin tones with colored pencils and filled everything else with markers. Their cherry blossom activity involved tissue paper as the flowers, so I recreated the cherry blossoms with my own tissue paper and glued them on top of my spread. I then added some final touches with a white gelly roll pen and finished.
Thoughts on Ravensworth E.S.
I highly enjoyed this experience since it confirmed that being an art teacher is what I want to do. I'm most comfortable with younger kids since I tutor some in math, but I absolutely loved the Ravensworth kids’ enthusiasm in art class. In Ms. Mahan’s class, one girl said I reminded her of her older sister who she missed, gave me two hugs, and introduced me to her friends who then taught me different languages. It was very cool being approached by kids who wanted to speak to me in Vietnamese, Serbian, and French. I also tried my best to give feedback to the students and motivate them when they didn’t like how their work was going, and one girl whom I’d helped earlier ran to me excitedly at the end of class proudly showing how much her artwork had improved! It was so touching that she felt the need to seek me specifically for helping her out at the beginning. Also, I loved how encouraging the kids were with each other as well. A little boy was showing me his sketchbook, and his classmate kept giving him compliments as she viewed from his right. It brought the biggest smile to my face seeing how well they interacted as a group!
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