This summer I taught art summer camp at the Banana Factory in Bethlehem, PA. I taught three weeks of camp in total: two weeks in June and one week in July. The kids were in the 4-9 year old age group and I had about 12 kids in each class.
It was a totally new experience for me! I hadn’t done this sort of teaching before, trying to lead art projects for a group of such young kids. To be honest, it was challenging and exhausting. But at the same time, it was also really fun and rewarding. I especially loved seeing the kids’ proud smiles when they held up their artwork to show me!
A happy kid proudly holding up her beautiful drawing!
I kept forgetting to ask the kids to write their names on their paper at the beginning of each project, so I ended up with a lot of art at the end that was unnamed and unclaimed. So, I can’t remember who made every piece, unfortunately.
I did take photos of some of my favorite pieces of art, mostly in the 12 x 16 inches range. Here they are:
flowers and houses, painted paper collage
a garden, watercolor and oil pastel
a beautiful collage of a bee (artist: Josie)
a beach scene, water color and oil pastel
a cityscape, watercolor
a figure and some shapes, watercolor and collage
Another fun thing I did with the kids was let them decoupage a bunch of empty tins I had saved. These tins used to hold tea or mints etc. We used glue and paper and buttons and feathers and various things we found to decorate the tins.
a decoupaged tea tin
Inside the tins, some kids made little interior rooms for people. We made people out of clothespins and modeling clay, corks, or sometimes just a drawing of a person on paper, and then cut out.
a little clothespin person in her fancy bedroom inside the tea tin
a little boy and his dog in a red room tea tin
We also made little “worlds” by painting pieces of canvas green, and then making trees and bushes and animals etc. out of whatever we could find.
a little green meadow with a stream and a circular pond
Sometimes the kids got restless before the time was up. When things started to get rowdy, we would sit down on carpet squares and I would tell stories. I really like telling stories! I had forgotten how much I liked it, since my own kids are teenagers now, and it’s been such a long time since they have asked me to tell them a story. I know a whole bunch of fairytales, but my favorite type of story is the kind that I make up as I go along, with lots of magic and adventure.
Anyway, as I sit here looking back at my summer, I feel grateful for having had the opportunity to teach summer camp, and to tell some stories. The kids made such beautiful art, and I felt lucky to be part of that.
collage-in-process