Artasia at Chedoke

At Chedoke School’s Kinder Connection program, the children were very creative. For our week two project, with the theme of space, the children were given materials to build their own space off a square of cardboard using tissue paper, coloured paper, pipe-cleaners, pom poms, straws, and markers. Although the idea was to make 3d spaces using the materials, the majority of the children used this opportunity to draw and colour on the flat cardboard piece. 

A really creative drawing was from one child who created a drawing of a place he called creepy town. He told me a lot about Creepytown, there was so much worldbuilding and it was very in depth and creative even though it was a 2D piece. Creepytown had a creepy house with tentacles, monster eyes on the windows, and a jail cell roof. There was also a large combination octopus-cat creature that watched over the town and protected it from skeletons with a slingshot. There were also ghosts in Creepytown, but they weren’t attacked by the octopus-cat, and nothing could hurt them because they were ghosts. When someone dies they go to Creepytown as either a skeleton or ghost (I couldn’t get an explanation on what determined this, it was possibly a morality heaver/hell type situation?). On the back of his cardboard he had a big colourful X which matched with his friend’s piece that also had the X, he said that when you die you get buried on the X (because X marks the spot) and that’s how you get to Creepytown. He then added himself and his friends as ghosts in the town and showed that nothing could hit them, it would pass through since they’re ghosts.

This moment revealed the creativity and worldbuilding that a child could make with just a regular piece of cardboard, even without using the more “fun” materials he was able to create a very in-depth world with so much story to it, and even envision himself and his friends as a part of it. It was interesting to see this be chosen as his space after the introduction of the activity, where I had them close their eyes and imagine a space they love or would like to go to. Even though the name was Creepytown and it had traditionally scary things, this was the space he chose and felt comfortable including himself in.

The creativity and story he was able to create with a simple piece of cardboard was inspirational and showed how even without fancy materials (I think it’s important to provide them with good materials though) anyone can create really interesting artwork.

– Narita Sargees