EVAN CARAVELLI / Arizona Daily Wildcat Third-grader Bryce Copenhober works on a book made from clay as master of fine arts graduate student Cathy Abraham teaches him how to properly attach a Scooby-Doo head to its cover.

The smell of clay and Crayola were in the air Saturday, as UA art education students became the teachers in art classes of their own.

Seniors and graduate students in the art department's Wildcat Art course, a senior capstone class for art education majors, practiced their teaching skills in front of students from local elementary schools, junior highs and high schools, and for many, it was the first time being in the teacher's shoes.

"It was my first experience (working) with anyone younger than high school," said Cathy Ward Abraham, a third-year graduate student who taught a class of second graders to work with clay. "I was kind of expecting them to go crazy when they got the clay."

As soon as the 12 students in Ward Abraham's class received their lumps of brown clay, the room erupted with the sound of balled fists beating the sticky mounds.

"It's fun to squish things," one boy said, as he flattened his clay with a rolling pin.

"I wish clay was cookie dough and I could have some," another student said.

Ward Abraham's class was one of six handled by UA students working to hone their teaching skills and prepare for teaching jobs after graduation.

"At least half of our students have very little experience as teachers working with other kids," said Erin Hesser, co-director of Wildcat Art. "This is really their foundation for what they can expect during their student teaching."

Thanks to the Wildcat Art program, the UA is one of few universities in the country that offers art education students a secondary teaching certificate with a K-12 endorsement.

"We are allowed to walk into an elementary school and be hired as the art teacher because we have experience with elementary students due to this program," said Hesser, an art education graduate student.

Most other art education programs nationwide offer a secondary certificate that only allows graduates to teach at the middle or high school level, Hesser said.

All art education majors must complete the three-credit Wildcat Art course before doing their required semester of student teaching, and for the next seven Saturdays, 17 UA students will take turns teaching one of six classes of young artists.

Because classes are broken up by grade level, each instructor will teach a different age group each week.

Although the Saturday classes are open to first through 12th-graders, the bulk of students who sign up are between second and fifth grade, Hesser said.

Hesser said students are not graded on their actual teaching abilities, but on what they learn from their experience.

"If their lesson totally bombs and there's glue all over the walls or construction paper explodes, they just can get a sense of where they went wrong and reflect on how they could have done it better," Hesser said.

Student instructors also have a fellow classmate to assist in the classroom in case they get nervous or something goes wrong, Hesser said.

Mike Sousa, an art education senior, who assisted with a painting lesson for fifth-graders, said he was worried about going into the classroom at first, but the jitters didn't last.

"As soon as things start happening, you don't have time to be nervous," Sousa said.

Sousa said by the end of the 2 1/2 hour class, he could already see a difference in some of his students.

He said one mother even told him after class that when her son came in that morning he didn't like art, but when he left, he was proudly displaying his work.

"When I first signed up I thought this was going to be a pain - getting up early on Saturdays," Sousa said. "But doing stuff with kids is fun. It's work, but it's enjoyable work."

Wildcat Art is considered a non-profit through the UA, and the $85 registration fee for each young artist who enrolls in the weekend classes covers the cost of Wildcat Art's operation and materials, Hesser said.

In April, more than 700 pieces of artwork from Wildcat Art participants will be displayed in the Union Gallery on the second floor of the Student Union Memorial Center in an exhibit put together by the art education students.

Hesser, who completed the Wildcat Art course herself two years ago, said the challenges offered by the class made her student teaching at Palo Verde High School feel like a breeze.

"This is a really, really unique program," Hesser said. "My experience in it set the stage for me to feel completely confident in the classroom."