Welcome Laura Bird Miller to Fireflies!

We are so excited to welcome Laura Bird Miller into our Fireflies' Family!

Laura has joined us and will be providing the content for our visual communications projects.   Each month she will 

• create an art project based on our CLIP theme and/or one of our specific CLIP books.
• introduce an art masterpiece to share with young children.
• provide discussion questions to be used when discussing the artwork with children.  
• design a visual project based on the masterpiece.
• make available the characters and setting props for our Fireflies Presents... puppet scripts.

Even though I am so excited about the expertise Laura brings to Fireflies in the area of visual arts, I am even more excited about her passion and love for children.   You cannot talk to her for long without being moved by her desire to be used by God to inspire students to be all that they can be in Christ.   Her enthusiasm is contagious and we are so blessed that she has agreed to join our team.

Not only is she an accomplished artist (her work is for sale on her website), she is available to inspire other teachers in the area of creating visual arts projects based on children's books.

As the art director for Circle Christian School, a fully-accredited private umbrella school for home school families in Orlando, Fl., Laura continues to touch the lives of hundreds of families.  Please click HERE to learn more about Circle Christian School and check out their art class options.

Don't miss Laura's upcoming post (Monday) and visual arts project (Tuesday) based on April's masterpiece!

Welcome to Fireflies, Laura!

Click HERE to read more about Laura from her personal website.

"I love having the entire class walking out the door saying, "That was so much fun; I really CAN draw!"  I believe most school-age children like instruction and want to apply this instruction to their creativity.  They love the freedom to explore and create, but they also love playing "follow the leader," watching me draw and demonstrate, and, yes, even using a template sometimes to get the gist of it.  I don't think there's only one way to do art or teach art, so I like to introduce the children to different artists and genres of art from abstract expressionism to classic realism.  

As an artist, I often throw in some art terms and basic knowledge of the elements of art and principles of design, so the students are casually exposed early on to these principles and often don't even know it!  This is done through a simple progression, repeated often. Like other global skills, for example, reading, writing, playing the piano, drawing is "made up of component skills that become integrated into a whole skill. Once you have learned the components and have integrated them, you can draw, just as once you have learned to read, you know how to read for life... Progress takes the form of practice, refinement of technique, and learning what to use the skills for." (Taken from "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards.)  

When gently encouraged and sensitively knowing when to lead and when to pull back and let them explore on their own, it is my feeling that any child can enjoy the experience of drawing & creating, can grow in their skill set, and have fun through artistic means of expression!"