“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up”
-Pablo Picasso
Welcome to Mrs. White's Class
Hello Everyone! Welcome to our class site. For those who don't know me, let me introduce myself. The 2026-2027 school year is my ninth year teaching at Florence Elementary School. I have taught STEAM, Title One, and kindergarten at Florence. For the past couple years I have also taught coding camps with Bitterroot Coding for Kids. Before working at Florence Elementary, I taught preschool for two years, as well as kindergarten for two years at Corvallis Primary. I earned my Bachelors in elementary education at the University of Montana in 2008.
While attending the university I worked for the Space Grant Consortium where I got to travel to different schools across Montana presenting space science from NASA to K-12 classrooms. Before I attended the university, I was in the Marine Corps as a Spanish Linguist for four years. I was fortunate to be able to travel to all sorts of places such as Mexico, England and Europe. I love learning about new places and I hope your kids do too.
I have lived in Montana most of my life. I grew up in Hamilton and Butte. My husband, Kenny, and I met in the Marine Corps and decided Montana was the place we wanted to call home so we moved back after our enlistments were up. We were married in 2007 and have 2 boys Reid and Greyson.
We also have two horses: Orion and Artemis, a dog named Riggs, and a cat we call Zorro because he is a crazy ninja fighting cat. We love hiking, horseback riding, and camping. I also love photography and READING! I spend many hours with my nose in a book.
Thanks for visiting, and I can't wait to meet all of you!
What's Happening
September 25, 2026
We have been busy this month in STEAM! I wanted to start off by explaining my philosophy on teaching STEAM and why I choose both process art and product art. This year I am trying to move at a slightly slower pace for our larger projects to give students more time to explore the materials on their own through choice "centers". In my classroom, I try to find a balance between the two. As their names suggest product art is when the artist is focusing on an end result or product to be able to show, whereas process art is more about just getting time to use the different mediums or techniques to play around with the elements of art. Many times this work ends up crumpled in the bottom of a locker, eventually in the trash, or gets recycled for another project as what it looks like in the end is not really important. It helps take the pressure off to "create a masterpiece".
I feel that both ways are important to their growth and creativity. A student who does not ever feel successful at art or engineering will quickly lose confidence and start to believe that "artistic ability" or the "ability to design something" is a genetic gift versus the hours of practice it really is. On the other hand a student who is told what to make and how to do it, often times will come to not trust their ideas and techniques to create something. Even though I have so many ideas and activities I would love to do every year for each grade, I want to make sure we have time for both even if it means we don't get to everything I had hoped.
As for what we have been working on currently kindergarten has been studying Paul Klee (pronounced clay) and his work with lines, we have done several activities using different types of line and our imaginations to make new art as well as learning our different "centers".
First grade is currently working on a pop art piece using oil pastels, water color, and focusing on the element of color. They are turning out so phenomenal.
Second grade started with an engineering challenge to create a lego car that was wind powered. They were having so much fun designing and redesigning that we continued for an extra class day! They are currently studying value and composition to create a nighttime painting using acrylic paint.
Third grade also enjoyed their first lesson so much they asked if we could continue for another day. Their activity was a mix between science, pop culture, and color theory. If any of you have older kids you may have heard of the video game "Meccha Chameleon" it went "viral" this summer. Basically the object of the game is a digital hide and seek where the player uses paint to camouflage themselves to hide from the seeker. No, we did not play the game in class but I printed out little paper people and then we went down to the mural wall by the weight room and colored them so they disappear to the eye. I had so many high school students compliment their work and they were shocked it was third graders who did it! They are very well done. If you get the chance check out that hallway. We really worked on our craftsmanship which is great for our current project
based off the work of Etal Adnan using 3 lines to compose a picture.
Fourth grade started the year with optical illusions and working on using value and perspective to make things appear 3-D. We have practiced on multiple small projects. We will be moving into beading after next week, we will do pet pictures after the beading to give families more time to email me any pet photos.
Lastly fifth grade jumped straight into the Robotics Lab. We learned how to use the Prime Lego kits (older student kits) and built a hopper and tried to redesign a better one. We will be heading into self portraits next week much to the student's dismay!! Haha.
As always feel free to email with any questions.
August 21st, 2026
Buckle up this is a long one! Just a bit of housekeeping and thoughts to start our year! First of all, I do not have my finalized student lists but as soon as I do, I will update Artsonia with all the new students and kindergarten students. For those new to our district, Artsonia is a digital platform where I upload your child's work. It can only be seen by people you send out the link to and myself. Though it does act like a fundraiser (last year it made the program about 500.00 extra! The last thing we purchased was some much needed student clay tools.) HOWEVER, DO NOT FEEL OBLIGATED TO BUY A SINGLE THING!! I do it for you all as a way to digitally keep your child's art. Remember the actual art will come home at the end of the year in a portfolio.
It was so amazing to see so many of you last night! Words cannot express how thankful I am to have families like you willing to donate supplies to our program! I know hot glue sticks, tape, and Mr. Sketch markers might seem excessive but I assure you there is a reason for my crazy requests! If you are wondering about things like "why would she need Mr. Sketch markers, Crayola works the same, she just wants the fun smell" rest assured that is not the case! I apologize in advance for any colored noses that I am sure are coming home. I just wanted you all to know I have tested out so many generic, name brand, and "artist" markers in the past two years and the Mr. Sketch, (by a long ways) win hands down for the juiciest, best markers to hold up to student coloring. While we work on understanding markers are not a "fast medium" like a crayon or colored pencil, and you have to go slower so the color is vibrant, it is a hard concept. Mr. Sketch are a lot more forgiving and way easier for students to get the art work to look the way they want without the dried up marker look.
These will be used mostly for our product art not our process art. Rest assured we use all our markers, and all supplies, to the fullest extent and when they are dried up I put them in water to extract every bit of color out of them and they become our liquid water colors. I know how expensive everything is with two teenage boys myself so I am truly blown away by your generosity. The creativity these kids get to have because of all of you is going to be amazing. I have so many new projects planned. I already feel like we are behind! Haha.
Aug 11th,2026
I hope everyone is ready as our summer is rapidly dwindling down! I am so excited to start my third year in STEAM. I have been taking new coding classes and scouring the internet for exciting new ideas for this year. Can't wait to see everyone soon.
Mrs. White as a 3rd Grader (Yes, I did pick out my own clothes and they are rockin')
