Atelierista, Learning to Help Teachers

I got a comment asking questions about how I support the classroom teachers. During my first year as Atelierista, this was my biggest challenge and one I didn't meet well. This year, my second in this job, I feel like I am doing better. There are some classrooms that I feel I am a vital part of. I hope to grow and learn so that soon I will be a part of every classroom, and a partner with each teacher in the pre-school.
Here is one story to show the back and forth between the teachers and me, the classroom and the studio. It is an unfinished story, which will be complete when the work goes back to the classroom and adds (or not) to the bigger project.

One classroom has interpreted the investigation into PLACE and photography as a look at how children see each other and themselves. For three year olds it seems, a place is the people in it. Sara and Cris showed me some portraits the children have been taking of each other, and some self-portraits made by collaging found objects over photos. In our discussion, we agreed that a further investigation into identity through self-portraits might be the next step. Cris had interviewed the children and had a list of favorite colors, animals and other information about each child. I took on the idea of photographs of the children being their favorite color.

Here is my first group...   drawing plans


using the overhead to see if it would make people purple

Drawing masks and using tattoo markers to be purple

After the masks were done, the girls decided to make puppets to go with their masks. This idea continues an earlier puppet/story project in their class.The excitement grew as the children made "puppets" out of paper strips and sticks. They were the purple people! They would have a purple people puppet show!

They paraded down the hall and back to the classroom...