CRESTVIEW — Just because their school lacks a staff art teacher doesn’t mean Bob Sikes Elementary School Bullpups must eschew the joys of finger painting, molding clay and otherwise rendering their world through creative visual art.
“When we couldn’t offer art classes, our teachers stepped up and started the Art Club,” Bob Sikes Principal Vicky Hayden said.
Kindergarten and first-grade teacher Amberly Qualls organized the club and — with first-grade teacher Trinity Dowdy and “helpers” Cassandra Seagle and Jamie Allende — offers two six- to eight-week programs each school year.
Kindergarten, first- and second-graders attend the club’s first session. Third- through fifth-graders fill the second.
And once the club caught on, “fill” became the operative word. “It fills up faster and faster every year,” Qualls said.
For the spring 2016 session, Qualls and her team received 75 applications for 25 spaces. She hopes to recruit more teacher volunteers next year “so hopefully we can have more kids participate,” she said. “We’d like to have as many in there as we can.”
First, hopeful club members create a piece of standard letterhead-sized art. “Then they write a little piece about why they want to be in Art Club,” Qualls said.
Art Club participants experience different art media during each hour-and-15-minute after-school club meeting.
“I try to do not so much an art lesson, but we look at different art by other artists, then we let them go,” Qualls said. “We either use a certain technique or a certain medium, then we let them go. It’s all individualized so it’s not cookie-cutter.”
Because Qualls and her team buy club art supplies themselves, they’re limited in some of the techniques and media they can offer. “They love to do the clay and papier maché. Some things are less expensive,” Qualls said. “Papier maché we can do cheap from old newspapers, but clay is expensive.”
With the school year ending, teachers are brainstorming fundraising ideas for the fall semester’s club. “I try to order in bulk, because supplies are so expensive, but I try to order enough for two years,” Qualls said.
School administrators and district officials laud efforts such as Qualls’ and her team.
“The arts help our students be better academic students as well as better, well-rounded young men and women,” Okaloosa District Schools Superintendent Mary Beth Jackson said.
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WANT TO HELP?
Contact Bob Sikes Elementary School Art Club organizer Amberly Qualls, 689-7268, to donate art supplies or financial support for club students
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Bob Sikes Elementary teachers step up to offer art