The First Day

It's your first day of teaching, and the students are coming down the hallway, what do you do?!  Keep calm and take a few things into consideration.  You'll need to be welcoming and understanding of your students.  There will be a lot of kids who each come from a different background, you need to try to learn where each of your students comes from.  Sure, you may not learn everything about your students on the first day, but you should try to learn as much as possible.


1)  Try a few basic art lessons where the students draw or paint something that interests them.

• Have them paint or draw a self portrait of themselves doing their dream job.
• Paint or draw the happiest moment of their life
• These works could then be shown by each student and explained to the class, so that not only you learn something about each student, but so does the class.
• Encourage the students to make comments and ask questions about each student's piece.

2)  Tell the students about yourself.

• Tell them why you love art and what you want your students to get out of the class.
• Explain some of the exciting projects that will be coming later in the school year.
• Do the projects mentioned above before the class period so that you too have something to show and talk about.
• Encourage the students to make comments about your work.  You should make comments about their work as well.  Good comments of course!

3)  Keep calm.

• The students will know immediately if you are nervous.  The best thing to do is just relax and be yourself, but also be relatable to the students so that they too can feel comfortable in the classroom.
• Show up well fed and well rested.  Prepare at least a week in advance and eat good food and get plenty of sleep.