Kids Day

Yesterday, was Kids Day at the museum. As I'm in the field of Art Education, I was asked to participate. First, we met the children and their parents at the museum entrance and then we gave them a tour of a few notable works of art in the museum. We had six children all four and five years old. Two of them, a brother and sister were Swedish and didn't speak a word of English or Italian which was a bit of a challenge. When we went to the activity room and began the art lesson (making masks for the figure in their chosen work of art), the Swedish boy especially was very shy and unable to begin the project. Initially, I had to point to materials and make suggestions about how they could be used to get him working. Eventually, he began grabbing materials himself, and though I still had to help him operate his scissors, his finished result was a fabulous mish-mosh of glitter, beads, paper, marker and ribbon. When I'd put his mask to my face to show him how it looked, he'd laugh and laugh. It was quite possibly the cutest thing ever to see him go from completely solemn to giggly. By the end, I'd regressed to his maturity level and we were flicking dried glue at eachother. The other students as well seemed to have a great time and were pleased with their finished work. It's a challenge teaching students in a language they absolutely do not understand, but it's also very satisfying. I hope to do this again next week!