PALM HARBOR, Fla. — Natalie Potacco is the visual art teacher at Curlew Creek Elementary School. 

She spent the summer teaching students art and now she’s back in the classroom for the new school year. Potacco said she learns about what her students are passionate about and then builds her lesson plans around those topics.

For some activities, the students work in apps on iPads. 

“And a lot of them are free and the kids will go home and then download those apps on their own iPads and do them, so it’s a really fun way to connect with them,” said Potacco. 

Potacco comes from a family of educators, so she was destined to follow that path.

“Art was always my No. 1 passion so combining the two was the easiest thing to do,” Potacco said. “And I’m more of a visual learner so when I was a child, being able to see something rather than just read it made it a lot easier for me to learn and understand.”

She knows how to create those experiences for her students at the very beginning of their learning years.

“I love teaching the fundamentals of it [art] and it’s great to be able to have them for six consecutive years, so I can really get to know them,” said Potacco. 

She teaches them many skills they’ll need to as they grow and learn in every subject.

“Organization, mapping things out, planning, creating, being comfortable talking about their artwork with their peers, which is really difficult even for adults,” she said. “And those skills they’re learning just as much as they’re learning the basics of art.”