Teaching with KID smART 23-24

Moton Charter | Mrs. Auzout’s First grade
Jasper Means (Mr. Jasper)

Wow! What a year!

This past school year was a rollercoaster of emotions, but overall, it was incredibly successful. It had its fair share of trials and tribulations, some ups and downs, and, of course, lots and lots of art making. Over the course of the Spring semester, we primarily focused on animals and fables, two of my absolute favorite subjects. We painted monkeys in watercolor, we collaged jellyfish, we wrote a fable about a fish and an eagle, and we even performed at Jazz Fest.

There were two main factors that played into creating such a brilliant and imaginative school year:

1. My co-teacher (Mrs. Auzout) was phenomenal to work with. She was flexible, innovative, inspiring, and passionate about integrating the arts into her lesson plans. She was also a big advocate of performing at Jazz Fest and always had good input when planning lessons. Mrs. Auzout and I have worked together since Fall 2022, and we synergize very well together. I could not have asked for a better co-teacher.

2. Our class of 25 first-grade students were all very brave, creative, and unique individuals. Each and every one of them tried their best to create and comprehend what they were learning day in and day out. Sure, there were moments when a student may have been having a difficult day or misunderstood the moral of a fable, but we were always able to bring it back to our learning objective as a class. Out of the 25 students in Mrs. Auzout’s class, 21 of them attended and performed at Jazz Fest. We also awarded one of our students a Student of the Month prize for the excellent work he did throughout the semester.

In conclusion, I would like to thank Mrs. Auzout and my students for being some of the most accommodating and easy to work with people I’ve had the pleasure of creating art with. I hope they take the things we learned over the past year with them for many years to come.