P.A.W.S
Welcome to Ponderosa Art with Students!
Our goal is to bring fun art activities into the classroom through parent-led lessons. It is a wonderful way to serve our awesome Ponderosa teachers and to get to know your child's classmates. The PTA provides the materials and has several lesson plans to help you have an easy experience volunteering in your child's classroom!
How it works:
Once a month each classroom needs 1-3 parent volunteers to work together to lead an art lesson. Typically one parent acts as the "lead" to prepare the lesson and the other parents help support the activity. The lesson should take about an hour.
A lesson generally follows this format:
Introduction and explanation of the activity (10 minutes)
Brief teaching about any art vocabulary words or concepts related to the activity. Some lessons include famous works of art that you can use to talk about these concepts (10-15 minutes)
Doing the activity with the students (30-40 minutes)
Cleanup (10 minutes)
To get started:
Complete a volunteer packet. They are available in the office.
Reach out to your child's teacher and let them know you are interested in helping with P.A.W.S. They will help guide you in picking a lesson, finding a time to do the lesson, as well as getting connected to any other parents who want to help too.
Pick the art lesson that you feel comfortable leading. Check out the tabs above for ideas. Feel free to look at other grades too. All of the Art in Action curriculum is available for you to look at (see below) for lesson ideas as well.
Schedule the lesson. You can hold the lesson in the classroom or in the Exploratorium. Reach out to your child's teacher or Andrea Isla (aisla@ssfusd.org) in the office to see if the Exploratorium is available on the day you want to hold the activity.
Prep your lesson. The art supplies available to you are listed here. If you don't see the supplies you need for the activity you chose consider purchasing them yourself and donating them to the school. As of now the PTA does not have room in the budget to reimburse you for additional supplies. The supplies are stored in the Exploratorium. See the tab above for more info.
Lead it however you want and have fun!
Disclaimer: For many years the PTA used an art curriculum called Art in Action. This was a robust, extensive collection of art lessons for each grade that included supply lists, art history education, vocabulary, detailed instructions and more. As of 2023 we are transitioning away from using these lessons- but you can still see these lesson collections in the Exploratorium- just know that you are not required to follow them exactly. Think of them as a jumping off point!
This is the exploratorium. Check with the office for when it is available to use.
These cabinets on the western wall of the Exploratorium hold all the art supplies.
These cabinets are behind the dry erase board and hold all of the old Art in Action lessons.
Art in Action lessons are organized as follows:
White binder: the Art in Action lesson plans.
Green binder: Supply lists and copies of handouts that go with the lesson.
Purple binder: Additional handouts that accompany each lesson.
Yellow Folder: student examples