Playing teacher

My creative space has been filled with children even more than it usually is this week.

This term I have been going in to help out in my big girl's (year 1) art class at school once a week. I've been having a great time watching all the little people express themselves through their art. It's absolutely fascinating watching those little personalities (some I know well, others vaguely) coming through visually.



Then recently I was using one of my hand carved stamps and thought I'd love to teach the class about block printing and to make their own stamp. The very encouraging teacher welcomed my idea, so after much thought and planning I went in this week for a hectic 2 hours full of fun.



I wanted to get the mix right of freedom to be creative with some guidelines so they wouldn't get frustrated or bored. We had them come up with a simple design, then draw it on to their own rubber block. While each child sat with me individually to carve their stamp, the others in the group used my existing stamps (below) to create a card, gift card and bookmark using scraps and samples of cardboard that I'd cut and folded into shapes and brought in. I also thought they might enjoy tying some string or ribbon on to the bookmarks & gift cards, so cut a heap of lengths of various bits and pieces I had. Anything colourful or sparkly is popular, of course!



I didn't get any pics of the kids in action as I was so busy helping them (phew, those teachers earn their money!) and also wanted to respect their privacy of course. They came up with some amazing (and bizarre!) little designs, and again those personalities shone through. What a lovely thing to see.

Take a look at Our Creative Spaces (last week for the year) here.