Happy New Year from Kidstreet!

Happy New Year from Kidstreet!  Winter classes begin Monday, January 7th and we still have spaces in many of our classes, especially for our tweens.  Tweens can take classes in Wheeltrowing, Metalsmithing, and Painting.  Sign up for your favorite now so you don’t miss your spot!

We will soon be posting our Summer Camp schedule online so you can plan ahead for your child’s favorite programs.  We are looking forward to more field trips, several 2-week camps for in depth exploration of new media, more morning camps for our pre-k students, and a new opportunity for our young teens to become a counselor in training and experience the teaching side of art camps.  We will provide links later in January for more information, but if you’re interested in the counselor in training program for your 12-16 year old, contact Melanie Brown at melanie@lillstreet.com



The Power of Open-Ended Questions

As I sit writing this, a clay and multimedia camp is painting the puppets they have made.  It is delightful to hear the children telling each other about their puppets.  Some students have invented special powers for their puppet, some have two puppets and one controls the other, some have elaborate back-stories as to how the puppets came into existence.  Ask any one of these young artists to tell you about their project and they are sure to have an entire narrative they have created while making their puppet.  Try it with your own child- even just having your child give a title to their creation adds such richness to their art work.  Much of the creation is happening in your child’s head and by asking open-ended questions you can find out just how deep their imaginations run.  For example, instead of saying, "I love how you made the sky pink” you can ask, “Can you tell me about this pink area up at the top?”  Or if they have created some kind of creature, you can ask what it eats, where it lives, what kind of friends it has, and what is its name.  These questions deepen the experience of creation for your child and gives you the beautiful opportunity to get a larger view of your child's world of imagination.

Want more?  Check out Linda Carson's page at www.bigblackpig.com, an art school for children located in Waterloo, Ontario.  She has a wonderful list of example questions and suggested reading.

Suggestions?

We are currently planning our Spring 2013 classes.  Do you have suggestions for classes? Suggestions for days and times?  We would love to hear from you!  Please write to Melanie at melanie@lillstreet.com with your input.

Be Well!