Budding Artists was a program we've done for two summers now, and it's a concentrated craft program. Most of the crafts we do with our storytimes are short, little 5 minute things that probably get trashed as soon as they get home. This program was a craft that took an hour long, and was hopefully nice enough to stick around a little longer than the 5 minute.
When we originally did this program, the age was set for 5. Really, really bad idea. The 5 year olds just didn't have the attention span for it, and they had to have their parents there helping, which took up space and made it so less kids could attend. So we set the bar higher to 8 (and still had issues with 5 year olds coming in), and things were a little better this year.
We started out simple. I made a Pointillism coloring sheet. Using Seurat’s “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte”, I made a black and white outline. I showed the kids a picture of the original painting, explained what pointillism is, and let them at it with markers. If they wanted to do their own design, they could flip the sheet over and do it there.
We then moved onto collage. Most of them had probably already done one at some point in time, but I did explain that the pictures could all be the same theme, or same color, or have absolutely nothing to do with the other. They definitely enjoyed this one because it's a little more interactive than the coloring sheet.
I believe the next project we did were the stained glass bottles, but because that was already discussed in the last post, I won't write about that again here. The next thing we moved onto after that was Pop art. This ended up being a two week program. I decided to do a giant paper-maiche pencil. I made a framework out of carpenter's cloth, and the kids did the paper-maiche over it. Because of the time needed for that to dry, we had to wait to paint it til the next week. I knew we wouldn't have the room for all of them to paint the pencil at once, so I made up some pop art coloring sheets. I had been taking pictures of the kids that had been participating, but since attendance fluctuated so much, I couldn't have pictures of everyone on hand, so I made sure I had pictures of Campbell's soup cans and Marilyn Monroe printed out as well. The kids really enjoyed working on the giant pencil and were making plans on us doing a whole line of oversized school supplies.
I believe the next project we did were the stained glass bottles, but because that was already discussed in the last post, I won't write about that again here. The next thing we moved onto after that was Pop art. This ended up being a two week program. I decided to do a giant paper-maiche pencil. I made a framework out of carpenter's cloth, and the kids did the paper-maiche over it. Because of the time needed for that to dry, we had to wait to paint it til the next week. I knew we wouldn't have the room for all of them to paint the pencil at once, so I made up some pop art coloring sheets. I had been taking pictures of the kids that had been participating, but since attendance fluctuated so much, I couldn't have pictures of everyone on hand, so I made sure I had pictures of Campbell's soup cans and Marilyn Monroe printed out as well. The kids really enjoyed working on the giant pencil and were making plans on us doing a whole line of oversized school supplies.
The final thing we did last summer were masks. I wanted to do something that incorporated one of the other creative arts, and this was perfect. We put up a sign in our staff area asking for donations of notions, and I bought some ribbons and things to supplement. We have a mask die-cut from Accucut, and get mat board donations from a neighborhood framer. All I had to do is put the supplies on the table and let them go to town. It was difficult getting some kids to stop adding things on and get them to leave, but they obviously had a good time.
You may be saying to yourself, "But what about that dreamcatcher over to the side there?" That was from our Budding Artists program last summer. I really liked this project, but it was a difficult one to master. For our younger ones (this was when we still had 5 yr olds), I punched holes in the mat board so they could just thread the jute through anyways they liked. The older ones I encouraged to do the proper way, but they still had problems with it. If there had been someone else who could do the weaving as well as I could, 
and help the kids, it probably would've been better. The dreamcatchers were made with mat board, jute, foam feathers, and plastic pony beads. If I were to do this craft again, I would get sinew, some green twigs, suede, etc - more natural materials to use.
and help the kids, it probably would've been better. The dreamcatchers were made with mat board, jute, foam feathers, and plastic pony beads. If I were to do this craft again, I would get sinew, some green twigs, suede, etc - more natural materials to use.
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