Spring Term and Spring Break Camps!

Crocus flowers are up! That must mean it's almost time for Spring Classes at Lillstreet! Our Spring classes begin the week of March 26th, so don't delay and let your favorite class fill up without you!

This year we are pleased to offer Spring Break camps the week of April 2nd. We have multimedia camp for ages 5 through 12 and an Egyptian Camp for ages 8-12. Both camps run Mon-Fri from 9-3:30 and students will use a variety of media, including clay, paint, fiber, wire, plaster gauze, and more! Campers will have outside time at a nearby park, weather permitting, and the Egyptian Camp will have a Wednesday field trip to the Oriental Institute in Hyde Park for hands on activities and a tour at the museum.

Does your child have a different Spring Break? Gather 5 or more students and we can create a custom camp just for you! Contact Melanie Brown for details: melanie@lillstreet.com


This warm weather also has me incredibly excited about Summer Camps! Many of you stopped by for our Summer Camp Reunion to create have some ice cream. Kimberly and I had a wonderful time seeing you all and your amazing creations. For those of you who missed it, here are a few images of what was made with our recycled camp shirts and our building project:



Re-purposed camp t-shirts never looked so good!


Some students drew a plan of their nature-inspired creation before using floral foam, tissue paper, and pipe cleaners to bring them to life.


Some created a place to live among the wildly-colored trees...











And others created fantastic creatures using only string and rubber bands to keep the creation together! It was a wonderful afternoon and we thank all of those who came out to play with us!

Be well and enjoy this wonderful weather. I plan to take more good slow walks around the neighborhood with my son, a magnifying glass, binoculars, and a specimen jar and do some active looking.
-Melanie

Inspired by Grandma Moses

Grandma Moses

Kidstreet Instructor Heather Mercer created the Inspired Artists class as a way to introduce the 5-8 year old students to a variety of different artists and mediums. This week the class was introduced to self-taught painter Grandma Moses. I am blown away by the paintings the students have made in response!




Learn more about Grandma Moses and her unusual art career by visiting the links below. You're never too young OR too old to create!

The New York Times "On This Day"

Video "Women Artists: Grandma Moses" by Susan David

Summer Camp Reunion and Spring Open House!

We are getting ready for Spring and Summer here at Kidstreet! The Spring and Summer class and camp schedules are online and we're very excited about all the new programming we have to offer.



In anticipation of camp, we are hosting a Summer Camp Reunion on March 3rd from 12-3pm with free summer-themed art projects and ice creams. Come in your camp t-shirt or summer themed outfit and enjoy an afternoon with your camp friends and teachers Melanie Brown and Kimberly Pancoast. Never been to camp? No problem! Come and find out what summer at Lillstreet is all about.

We are also hosting a Spring Open House on March 10th from 12-4pm with free workshops for all ages, artist demonstrations, and open studios. You can see the schedule of events here. Come both weekends and make some art with us!

Project of the Week: Exploring Texture with your Toddler



At Kidstreet, even those under the age of 2 have the opportunity to take a class. Today in Colored Textures, students explored soft felt, feathers, and pom poms along with soft shaving cream paint. We mixed and painted on a tray and a piece of felt-covered cardboard. We used our hands, brushes, pom poms, and cars to make our marks. Want to try it at home? Improvise with materials you already have. No felt? Use a piece of old t-shirt or towel to wrap around a piece of cardboard as a soft painting surface.



No cloth? Go shiny and paint on foil. No paint? Use whipped cream, yogurt, or a flour and water paste mixed with food coloring- these are great alternatives for shaving cream for children who are enthusiastic oral explorers. Plastic toy cars, cotton balls, and washable plastic figures are all great tools for making dots and tracks. A highchair tray makes a great place to work! You can also add a little school glue to the mix and your paint will retain some of its puffiness and hold collage elements such as re-purposed magazine clippings, gift wrap, tissue, and string.
Don't wait until you have the perfect materials for the perfect project, just get creative with your kids with what you have!


Lillstreet in the News:

A big thank you to Karen Jordan from ABC7 who filmed a wonderful piece on Lillstreet for "In Your Neighborhood". Roz Adam's "Build It Up" class is featured enthusiastically painting their imaginative wood constructions. You can watch it here.

Winter Break Camp.

Here is a look at some of the projects kids completed during their first week of winter break camp. Congratulations to a wonderful group of kids on their creative and enthusiastic approaches to these assignments.

Frida Kahlo's self portraits are loaded with images of symbolic objects. In this project, kids created a set of symbols to use in their own self portraits.

Campers were introduced to the work of Judith Scott. Mimicking her methods, students created armatures out of various materials. They completed their sculptures by diligently wrapping them with yarn, string, and strips of fabric.

After learning about Papunya Aboriginal art from the western desert region of Australia, students created their own "dot paintings" on limestone tiles.

We ended the week by making whimsical puppets.

Open House 2011

Saturday was filled with creative energy and lots of glitter in the kids studios here at Lillstreet. Check out some of the sophisticated works of art created by our young artist! The wide variety of projects that came out of a simple set of materials was absolutely inspirational. Left: Buttons, wood and string used to create a necklace that matches her coat.
Right: Pom poms and her own face turned creative time into a performance we were all able to enjoy.

This young lady made several versions of her little dolls using different materials. She made these out of buttons, wooden beads, and wire.

Left: Buildings under construction! The group used wood and glue to create their structures. Embellishments varied.
Right: Covering projects in a delicious layer of glitter. Bravo!

Congratulations Kris...

...and welcome to the kidstreet family little Lucia!

Oobleck and a Scanner.

The Kidstreet classroom was an experimental art and science studio this morning. A class of 18 - 30 month old artist created compositions with non-Newtonian fluids then used a scanner to record their transient art.



It’s pretty exciting to push a button and watch a print appear. Another tool has been added to their material palette!