The two moms and I had our third Art Vistas lesson with Connor’s class on Monday.  With a group effort this year, my prep time for the lessons has been a lot easier than last year.  I looked through the syllabus briefly on Sunday, then one of the moms and I prepared the materials and cut out the clays on Monday after drop off in the morning.  By 10am, our kindergarteners marched into the cafeteria to join us.  Connor came give me a hug, then sat down with the class.  I started the introduction and briefly reviewed the few new vocabularies for this lesson, foreground, middle ground and background.  Then between another mom and I, we used four paintings to discuss the new vocabularies and review some previous terms, ie shapes, lines, colors and textures.  The kids were attentive and eager to answer questions, but we did take a bit too long as I realized that they were getting more restless by the last painting.  We quickly wrapped up to allow the third mom to go over the hands on project “clay animals” with them.  The kids returned to the tables and started working with the ball of clay we prepared for them.  We assisted them to use a wooden tool to roll out the clay, then they chose an animal template to cut out the clay animal.  At last, they used some tools to add textures and designs for the animals.  As soon as the children were mostly done, the moms and I tried to quickly take the artwork and the tools away before they had a chance to overwork the clay.  Finally the teacher led the kids back to their classrooms while the moms and I took the artwork to the Kiln room and cleaned up.