UAEA Conference

February 21- 23

A co-worker of mine knew that I am into art and teaching art. She suggested that I attend this art conference with her in St. George. It counts as professional development so I don't have to take any PTO time and it involves art. Sounds like my kind of tea. Plus, it's in a place a lot warmer than Vernal--I'm down. After getting out of school, I met up with an art teacher from the district that was going later than the big group. We carpooled down driving from Vernal to St. George. It was a long drive in my little Saturn. I would have traded off, but she didn't know how to drive a stick shift so it was just me. I dropped her off at her parents place and then continued onto my way to my hotel.

Pretty nice, right?

I woke up the next morning and headed over to where the UAEA conference was being held. First we had a guest speaker from a private boy high school. He had some interesting points on how he taught art. He mentioned something that as a high school student and especially college, I can see, understand and agree with. But with an elementary classroom, it gets a bit foggy in how this works. He said that having students copy from a picture/photograph isn't teaching them how to draw. It is just having them practice moving their hand. To learn how to draw or paint, you have to practice and kind of figure it out on your own.

After the guest speaker, we all moved to the auxiliary gym for some hands-on lesson plans. They had many different venues for you to experiment with and learn how to do several different lesson plans with different grades. I didn't find too many art lessons that I could do with a class of 60 + first graders, unfortunately.

This is so cool! Condensed paint + eye shadow applicators; who knew?

After the hands on part, we had a variety of classes that we could choose to go to at different time slots. Different workshops that weren't as simple as the hands on part.

Around 12:30, we broke for lunch catered by Kneaders. Fresh bread, salad, tomato basil soup, chocolate dipped strawberries and a canoli. Delish!!

After lunch, we went to a few more workshops before calling it a day. Instead of going to dinner with some of the other educators from Uintah School District, I popped over to a family friend's apartment to say hello. Her family was in town helping her pack up her apartment to go to Orem. Colleen had dinner waiting for me and Kellyann told me the awesome proposal story that knocked her socks off. I am so excited for her to be married. John seems like a great guy. 

Once I left her place, I decided to do some shopping and headed back to the hotel to chat it up with Nate before going to bed.

The next day, we had a few more workshops to attend before going home. A large storm was making it's way down the wasatch front toward St. George so not too many people stayed for all of the workshops. I stayed for most of them and continued to learn a bunch. Including Zentangle!

They are so cool!

I did a bit more shopping before picking up Lindsay to head back home. With Nate's help, we were able to find a way back to Vernal without getting the blunt of the storm. We travelled through this canyon that would take us to Duchesne from just north of Beaver and caught a chunk of the storm. It got ridiculously foggy, icy and snowy making it hard to see. I am kinda thankful a large semi-truck was in front of us, even though he was going REALLY slow, beyond safe slow. I will say I have never been so grateful for the road grooves that make noise when you cross over them. Because otherwise, we probably would have ended up in a ditch. As soon as we got out of that canyon, it cleared up like night and day difference. Lol We made it home to Vernal safely. Other than the crazy challenge of driving in a snow storm, it was a pretty great weekend in St. George!