“Hey we finally made it to Spain!” is what one little little girl in my Art Around the World class screamed when she snuck a peak into my big purple messenger bag and saw Ferdinand the Bull, by Robert Lawson. This caused other students to yell and jump up and down and act rambunctious. I realized that I had very effectively built up excitement, in this class. They were soooo pumped to learn about Spain! Spain has castles, and pigs that eat acorns, and they make beautiful pitchers out of clay. Of course then I had to spend 5 minutes calming everyone down and getting them seated before I read Ferdinand.
After our story myself and my 5th grade assistant for the day gave a demonstration. We were all going to make polka-dot pinch pots with handles just like the images I showed on my laptop. I had put together an iPhoto slide show accompanied by Spanish Flamenco music. After Ferdinand we watched it. And after the demonstration we began.
After we finished our pots we took a quick moment to draw them. Lea age 6, told me that she drew her pot how she wished it looked, and not how it really looked in real life. I really enjoyed that she was creating a design for a pot through experimentation, accepting her limits, and still finding a way to express herself. She couldn’t actually make her ideal pot so she drew it instead. I love it.
After that, we took a second look at the castle in Ferdinand and we imagined what our castle would look like if we could build our own.
I do not know why we had so many purple castles… I love how girls at this age use one another’s shapes and patterns and designs. If they see one girl’s pink flower drawn with loops then they will want to make their own pink flower with loops. Women my age still do this, we still see other women doing something wonderful and then try it out for ourselves. We just use clothes instead of purple castles.
Emma Teaches Art! 
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