Mission

Art and the ability for personal expression are what make us truly human. Children are wholly engaged in higher-order thinking skills when they create art. Even very young children can successfully manipulate crayons, paint and clay into an original -- and highly satisfying production. Not only do they tap the depths of their imagination, but the visual stories that flow onto the paper or into the clay are rich with hundreds of individual decisions. Older students exploring photography are simply exploring images through higher technology. The camera is simply a more sophisticated tool for contemporary artists to use.

The Poudre School District recognizes the need for standards and assessments in the arts. Building a good visual composition is much like developing a good story. Without proper grammar and spelling the meaning of a story is hard to find -- without knowledge of the basic elements of art students cannot structure a strong composition.

A sampling of lesson plans developed for the Riffenburgh K-6 curriculum and the Blevins Photography curriculum can be found by clicking on lesson plans.

Expectations

I expect that my students will come to my room with an open and inquisitive mind. They need to be open to new concepts and flexible for ideas that run contrary to their own. It is in the artem (or photo room) that we can really understand how sixteen different approaches to the same problem can have (at least!) sixteen different solutions -- and the most wonderful part is that we can all be "right" without anyone being "wrong."