I had the pleasure of providing art instruction for a group of children at the Deselvestro after school program in south Philadelphia. It was a fun and challenging learning experience, however was extremely rewarding.
The group of students I was working with ranged in age from 4 to 13 years old and many of them were Bi-lingual or low level ESL learners. Most came after school from Philadelphia public schools however there were a few from a local private school. Needless to say it was a very diverse group of students, who for the most part were reluctant to partake in any kind of organized lesson. It was a challenge to hold the attention of the entire group as they were usually bursting with after school adrenalin.
The lessons:
The kids all made their own recycling posters for a citywide competition. I was still getting to know the students. They all tried to finish to quickly, a few of them liked to say "I'm done!" over and over again, I respectively responded "no your not" and tried to get them to add to their drawings. I continued to ask them "what else gets recycled?" and tell them to draw it. One little girl thought hard to my question and responded with "computers?" I told her computers are recyclable, but they do not go in the blue recycling bin. She said, "So I can draw it?" I told her she could, and she drew a very small computer screen in her picture of large pink recycling bin. It was a great little lesson with an important message, however I feel that the act of recycling is overlooked and rarely practiced in our schools.
I tried my classic, the draw your own superhero lesson, however had less success with this group. I brought in a book of supper heroes for them to look at, but encouraged them to make up their own superhero with a unique superpower. The kids had a hard time beginning their drawings, and I spent much of my time showing them how to lightly draw stick figures and then add details on top.
On March 23rd and 30th I did a collage lesson on gestures and Keith Haring. I introduced Keith Haring to the kids; I showed them some of his work but was careful not to show them the book I had because of some of the more inappropriate images. I did however tell the kids that he died of AIDS. The kids traced a stencil of a human figure I made onto construction paper and cut out each individual piece (arms, legs, head ect.) We talked about what a gesture is and how gestures can imply action and emotion. The kids then decided on their gesture and glued their cutout pieces onto construction paper. There was a good variety of work; some of the work included strong men lifting up barbells, playing soccer, eating, stretching, and a ballerina (my favorite).
PA Dutch Hex Symbols, April 6th, 13th, and 20th. I introduced Pennsylvania Dutch folk art and the tradition of painting Hex signs on barns. I had the kids fold 12' squares of white paper corner to corner, in half, and so on to get creases for guidelines. It was a little tricky drawling the circles because I only had one compass. I drew the circles for the younger kids and let the ones I trusted use the compass to drawl their own circles. I showed them how to do a kind of nautical star and tried to get them to do make any creative shapes within the circles. Painting was fun; we used tempera blocks, which are cheap and last forever. On the 20th I tried to get some of the hex symbols ready to submit to a student show. Kids finished painting, outlined their work in markers, and cutout the circles and glued them to construction paper.
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