Terrified yet going forward - help please

[stalksthedawn]

Hi there :)

I have been asked to teach afterschool art classes to a kids program three days a week. On Wed. I'll be teaching 1st-5th graders and on Thursdays it'll be K-2nd graders. On Mondays the ages and number of kids is up to me so I'm not that worried about it.

Anyway, I have to do a 30 minute intro this coming up week for Wed and Thurs and I need some help coming up with something quick, fun and easy. I've checked out Kinderart and plan to use it for the long sessions but not sure what to do for this short intro session. Does anyone have any ideas for me?

TIA
Aleks

[KPowe]

I'm not sure who the audience is for your intro session. If it is the students, you can tell them what to expect in the coming sessions. Go into a taste of the joys of art. And suddenly, your 30 minutes will be done!

After all, you don't have time to pass out materials and do anything in 30 minutes.

[Richard Saylor]

Talk a little about what you have planned, but keep a dialog open (unless there are too many in the class for that). Encourage questions. If they are uncommunicative (and you have time), begin drawing a simple picture and ask them for suggestions on what to do next. If they still don't communicate, draw something really stupid (try to get laughs) and ask if that looks right. Most important of all, try to warm up to the kids and make them think that you consider them important.

[Pars]

If the demonstration is for the youngsters I'd recommend big white paper and lots of big strokes. I worked with 3-4s years ago and they had the most fun making "dragon's blood" - their word, mixing tempera in big pots and going at it. After they had this on hands, they settled down for more individual instruction.

Good luck. I found working with pre-school extremely rewarding (on reflection as much as during). :cat:

[alibean]

Hi Aleks,

I am new to this teaching stuff (only two classes under my belt), but I notice that the kids love to see your artwork. They are fascinated by what you can do and how to do it. All they say is "How did you do that?!" So maybe for 30 minutes you can show them some of your work and then a simplified version of how they can achieve something like it.

Some of the kids wanted to know how to make things look 3 dimensional. So for the older kids (2nd through 5th) I showed them a simple 1 point perspective using simple shapes that they traced from cardboard shapes - triangles, squares, etc (I thought real buildings would be too challanging). For the tounger ones I handed out colored shapes and black shapes and had them glue the colored ones over the black ones to look 3-D. They can't believe how it looks and that they made something look 3D!

I hope this helps in some way and good luck. Also, I checked out your website and I think the kids would love to see your work.

Ali

[stalksthedawn]

Thanks for all the advice! Class number#1 was yesterday. 25 screaming, yelling, hyper kids between 1st and 5th grade. I'm still twitching lol.

Today will be easier with a much smaller group of kids and they did love my artwork lol.