Across our many years of programming at JSACP one thing has remained constant, our Educators and Children love “club” activities. We’ve had cooking club, soccer club, science club, fitness club, language club, you name it, we’ve probably done it.
This Term we were excited to kick off our weekly “Art Club”, as we experimented with a number of different artistic mediums and activities. We’ve painted, threaded, molded and sketched and had a wonderful time doing so. As an Educator who does not consider themselves artistic (colour by number is the exception), it has been interesting to watch the process unfold. When Elise floated the idea of still life drawing workshops, some of us were skeptical (won’t name names), but how wrong we were – see, it’s a club thing!
Each week Elise has introduced a different subject for the children’s still life drawing workshops, tying in with some of our weekly learnings/themes – Nutrition Week, RSPCA Cupcake Day, Halloween. What we’ve been trying to embed with the children is “enjoy the process and don’t worry about the end result”. This process over product philosophy has changed the way our children engage in art projects – we speak about options for materials, brainstorm ideas and celebrate other’s creativity.
As a teacher, Elise is well versed on outcomes expected through classroom learning activities, but she was happy to fill us in on the many benefits of artistic pursuits for children’s development. As an adult that struggles to conceive an idea and visualize it, it’s amazing to see what the children come up with. This right brain activity is an important part of children’s development and is fostered during creative pursuits. Drawing/painting is a wonderful form of non-verbal communication and self-expression. It is such an inclusive way to facilitate communication and social skills among a diverse group of peers.
Of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the motor skills involved (we have health practitioners on our team, it’d be a crime not to!). As Educators, we’ve been learning that art is always 100% messier than we think but children are washable (as are the hall floors!). Of course, most importantly is, children really thrive when given the opportunity to learn new skills. They’re already racking their brains trying to come up with JSACP’s next club idea.