Tuesday, I observed a training session for Art Adventure. The program trains volunteers on how to stir up conversation and questions for students on artwork at the MIA. It was really educational to learn how to talk to children about certain artworks. During the session, it was emphasized to pertain to children’s senses like “What do you see?” and making sure to add “you” statements. On Wednesday, I met up with Sheila McGuire, involved with student and teacher learning. She introduced me to some more projects that I could be involved in. One of them was with 826MSP to help children with storytelling, which was something I was planning on volunteering for last semester. It’s funny how these things work out! Along with this, as we were viewing the MIA’s webpage together, we came to the realization that on the “Must See” self guided tour needed to be updated with new artwork and questions for young viewers . On Friday, I was able to sit in on a zoom meeting for the last project for Creativity Academy. The class was making animal vessels inspired by a Quapaw vessel at the MIA out of model magic which would be exhibited at the MIA. The two teaching artists, Bethany and Cy, had a really neat and organized approach to the project. They first went over classroom etiquette, vocab terms, and a little history of the Quapaw tribe and the artwork the project is based on. When they showed a picture of the vessel, they had the students use the “See, Think, Feel, and Wonder Method.” Earlier this week, this kind of thinking was emphasized when I met with Sheila, but in a strange way, it felt more official when hearing a title for the method. After the kids took observations using this method, they filled out a brainstorming sheet for their animal vessel. However, from the behavior of the kids, they were struggling to answer the questions of the animals name and their special power. The teacher was facilitating the classroom through the entire session, but it was interesting how the teacher had to remind the students that this wasn’t graded and they couldn’t be in “school mode”. For me, I could see this as being a challenge because the students are still in their original classroom where they learn graded material like math and english, so it would make sense that they would still be in the literal mindset for “school mode”. I feel like this would really be a challenge for teaching artists who go into schools, because the children are more concerned about grades than practicing their creativity. Once the students had filled out their brainstorming sheet, they got started on molding the clay for their vessels. I’ve worked a lot with model magic with younger students before, so it was a different perspective to view the experience on the outside. After their molding, Bethany and Cy made sure the students looked at a checklist to make sure they made their animals into a vessel, had details from their brainstorming sheet, and they included decorations. They also filled out a back sheet where students would describe what their character looked like and where the animals lived. To end the week, I worked on writing new questions for the virtual tour “Must See”. I found it to be a lot harder than I thought. Trying to create original questions that pertain to each piece of artwork is quite challenging.