Volunteer Experiences

I have volunteered in many different ways since starting my teacher education program, however, I will only share a few in an effort to be concise.


            I was a Missoula Flagship volunteer for the spring 2013 semester at Franklin Elementary. I absolutely loved this experience! I taught an after-school 3D art class to 3rd graders. It was a smaller group so it was an opportunity to work on my one-on-one instructional techniques. My education with art ed had started before I was even accepted into the education program! :)

        My next volunteer activity was a summer of volunteering at the Zootown Arts Community Center in Missoula. What an amazing place. I did a myriad of different jobs while working there throughout the summer...however, one of my main job was to apprentice the visiting artists teaching summer camps by way of classroom management. So, I was the volunteer "strong hand" to keep the summer camp classes orderly and moving smoothly through the projects. I had a blast with it, and what a fantastic way for a "budding" art teacher to get some new ideas! I also received my first instruction with kiln firing through this experience. A very worthwhile skill for an art teacher.

While student teaching I volunteered  throughout the schools over a dozen times for events, fund raisers, state-wide art competitions, school club competitions and packing up classrooms for a giant move to a new school, but my favorite in-school volunteer event was my being asked to be the juror for the end of year high school art department art show. It took me 5 hours to evaluate four different teachers' classrooms adorned with art from across the artistic mediums. It was wonderful to see the culmination of the students hard work at the end of the year. This show also included the senior show, which included the graduating senior's best work from their high school career; as a group they show tremendous talent an I was proud to see some of the wonderful students I had a change to teach displaying their works and showing them off to parents. I was also coaxed into participating in a blind wheel throwing competition after awards were handed out...in which I did terribly, to the delight of the students. They knew it was my weak point and squealed with delight as my poor attempt at a cylinder spun into an unrecognizable blob. :)

Here are some photo's of the end of year art department student show that I juried.

I wrote this lesson plan for the unit following my memory boxes,
the ceiling was covered with the installation, it looked wonderful!

Finally, one of the most touching volunteer experiences of my life kind of fell into my lap while student teaching. One of the local nursing homes was calling schools to find an art teacher who could give a presentation to the home's residents on the Dutch Master's. As my first degree is in Art History, my high school cooperating teacher referred the director to me...and so it went.  I've also spent a fair amount of time in Holland, so put together a nice slide show and gave an hour long talk on the Netherlands and Dutch painting, focusing on the "Dutch Master's". (Which I feel is subjective, but I didn't share that with the residents. )

My presentation for the Derby, KS Sterling House Nursing Home is located on the right side of this blog in the Best Academic Work box, as I was really proud to have done this for some wonderful elderly within the community where I student taught. Enjoy!