The following advice might be a no-brainer for many of you. However, since I have found that many Godly Play teachers have little previous experience doing art with children, I thought I would throw it out there.
Before each Godly session, it is a good idea to check all of the art materials and make sure that they are ready to use. Nothing takes the joy out of doing art faster than picking up colored pencils that haven't been sharpened or finding that the paint brushes from last week are dirty. Especially in shared space, we adults can forget to build this into our preparation time.
Some things to put on your checklist: Sharpen the colored pencils. Make sure the crayons are in good condition. (Block-shaped beeswax crayons, for example, get soiled by the pigments from the other crayons and need to be periodically rubbed down to clean them.) Get rid of magic markers that no longer write well. If the children will be using paints, make sure that everything they need is within reach such as water, clean brushes, paper, etc.
Before each Godly session, it is a good idea to check all of the art materials and make sure that they are ready to use. Nothing takes the joy out of doing art faster than picking up colored pencils that haven't been sharpened or finding that the paint brushes from last week are dirty. Especially in shared space, we adults can forget to build this into our preparation time.
Some things to put on your checklist: Sharpen the colored pencils. Make sure the crayons are in good condition. (Block-shaped beeswax crayons, for example, get soiled by the pigments from the other crayons and need to be periodically rubbed down to clean them.) Get rid of magic markers that no longer write well. If the children will be using paints, make sure that everything they need is within reach such as water, clean brushes, paper, etc.
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| Sharpening our Stabilo watercolor crayons. |
Little hands love a well-prepared environment!
:) I have to confess that I have deliberately NOT been doing this. That's because when I first introduced the pencil sharpener, two children began breaking tips off pencils on purpose, to have an excuse to carry on sharpening that day. Now I leave any blunt or broken ones as they are... in case somebody might like to sharpen them as their work for the day.
ReplyDeleteBut I should also confess that nobody has yet chosen to sharpen pencils as their work for the day!
Hmmm . . . I hadn't run into that problem yet! Maybe you could you try to explain that the pencils will get used up and there won't be anymore if they keep doing that? Or let them know that breaking the pencils on purpose means that drawing is done for the day?
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