Executing program delivery with the school age kids at Today’s Family St. Augustine location was much different from my projects with my Kindergarteners. I was always incredibly delighted to get involved with harnessing this particular groups’ more defined ways of creative expression and problem solving with the 5 senses when participating in our program.

During week 1 we executed our project for our sense of feeling with creating texture stamps using plasticine and ink to make prints in their own folded zines. Our program delivery was done outdoors at the Dundas Driving Park, and the kids took their environment to their full advantage when going around collecting their textures. One girl in particular was incredibly invested in documenting multiple things from nature on each page of her zine and I gave her some assistance in labeling them properly. She was excited to show her collection to her parents and treated it like her own reference book for the nature around her! There was also another off hand incident where one girl accidentally made a stamp from a live spider that she didn’t see on the rock she was imprinting that simply stood out to me from the playful absurdity of it.

For week 3 we explored our sense of sight with makeshift picture frames made from cardboard with clear acetate paper for the class to trace on what they see around them with markers. There was a particular group of boys that never really interacted with any of the projects I brought the previous weeks, however this week they took a swing at it and got quite involved in drawing each other’s FIFA soccer jerseys that they were wearing and passed their drawings around like trading cards!

Alternatively, there was a small group of girls who were cranking out multiple drawings on the acetate and were getting progressively more detailed with each drawing they made, moving quickly from drawing flowers to painting entire sceneries of the park and the cars surrounding us. It was interesting to see how these kids challenged themselves to try and trace things at different angles and appreciate how everyday things are composed around us like artwork.

I really enjoyed working with this group of kids at Today’s Family as their humour and wit really shone through the things they liked drawing, as well as their approach to interacting with the world around them to bring the projects to life. Thank you to the dedicated counsellors and ECEs for helping them come out of their shells and let loose with their creative side and interests!