Welcome to the Atelier!  A creative space for children to work on in-depth artistic explorations, a supportive environment to foster their creative expressions with developmentally appropriate practice.  This course will be dedicated to advancing the young child's artistic skill and creative expression by use of varying medium: clay, wood, wire, paper, paints, inks, pastels and mixed media- loose parts- found & recycled objects.

With these sessions in the Atelier, we will work on collective ideas or a provocation to stimulate cognitive processing which will enhance their developing creative resolve and artistic expression.  These atelier sessions and pedagogical approaches to studio work with children are inspired by the Reggio-Emilia practices started in Italy, which supported young children to work with various materials to express their thoughts, feelings in response to community events and everyday learning opportunities that surround a developing child's life.  Through decades of research of this pedagogical practice, is has shown very interesting findings that children are very competent learners. With dedicated time to work on specific themes and materials they become very skilled with developing their cognitive abilities, their social-emotional skills, artistic and creative expressions.

Each Atelier session will start with a class discussion about ideas sparked from a provocation I will present to the children about ideas and various materials.  Each class session will be a new provocation/ a new discussion on how to begin to explore our materials and how to express our ideas and thoughts in an artistic manner. There is a PDF attached upon enrollment which will list suggested supplies and materials used for these sessions, as well as a listed weekly guide to prepare for the Atelier in the classroom section once enrolled and below in this class description. This approach welcomes children that might pop in once to explore this Atelier, as well as for children that wish to experience every Atelier session and dive deep into their creative developments.  I will share my screen often with images to enhance their creative processing. This is a good beginning point to start with young children to start building their cognitive abilities and social emotional skills.  As they listen to each other's ideas, and perhaps sharing their work from previous classes to the new friends in the new class session, and as well as by my gentle suggestions, children will naturally dive into their creative pursuits of exploration.  As they progress with developmental skills and abilities, their creative work often becomes a springboard for later research as they become older, into ideas pertaining to STEAM (Science- Technolgy- Engineering- Art-Math).

 *Please note that young children need time to develop a relationship to various materials that they can use for artistic expression.  They need the repeated exposure to work with materials to understand the properties of how to manipulate it, how the said material(s) respond to their touch, how to combine it to other materials. They need the time to explore, to discover what works, what doesn't work, how to create resolve to a problem they experienced.  Sometimes a child will just need to spend weeks "playing" (it may seem like 'play' but it is important exploration) with various art materials in different ways.  Sometimes a child might make something, then destroy it. Sometimes a child might want to just focus on their own ideas and not engage with others.  Sometimes a child might make something and then discover it broke or fell apart, and be very disappointed.  These are all very valuable moments in time! It is how the creative muscles are developed.  Through this course, children will have the opportunities to explore specific artistic medium repeatedly. I encourage a lot of practice with clay for the young child, for it is a very valuable medium to explore for little hands.  It is excellent for eye-hand coordination, excellent for building fine motor skills and is a very forgiving art medium to explore. I will be supportive and encouraging your children to explore creative possibilities in every class! Below are the broad outlines of the work to be explored in this course:

Week 1: 
Material: Clay, cardboard or plate surface, moist cloth * Please see attached PDF*


Week 2: 
Material:  Clay, cardboard or plate surface, moist cloth, items to poke into the clay (twigs, marbles, shells, seeds, * other items of interest etc. * Please see attached PDF*



Week 3: 
Material:  Clay chunks * Please see pdf in classroom with instruction for preparation*, Slip, Poky Stick, cardboard or plate surface, items to poke into the clay (please find a few of interest)  
Slip is water & clay= consistency of mud * Please see attached PDF*


Week 4: 
Material:  Clay, Slip, Poky Stick, clay tools * please see pdf, for ideas- simple ideas such as a pencil), Acrylic Paints & liquid soap (please pick paint colors your child wants to use), cardboard or plate surface, items to poke into the clay (Slip is water & clay= consistency of mud  * Please see attached PDF*


Week 5: 
Materials: Clay, Slip, Poky Stick, Acrylic Paints (colors your child wants to use), cardboard or plate surface, items to poke into the clay (twigs, marbles, shells, seeds etc.
 Slip is water & clay= consistency of mud   * Please see attached PDF*


Week 6: 
Materials: Paper (white or colored, you choose), tape (please provide a variety of different kinds- see classroom instruction for prep) pastels (oil- based) 
* Please see attached PDF*


Week 7: 
Materials:  Paper (white or colored, you choose), oil pastels, markers, glue-stick, scissors, cardboard
 * Please see attached PDF*


Week 8: 
Materials:  Paper (white or colored, you choose), crayons, markers, variety of natural leaves, magnifying glass, tape, scissors, glue-stick
* Please see attached PDF*


Week 9: 
Materials:  Wire (piper-cleaners, floral wire- different gauges* the higher the wire gauge, the more flexible) beads, wood sticks and or wood branch, scraps of paper
* Please see attached PDF*


Week 10:  
Materials:  Acrylic paint or paint of your choice, liquid soap (you choose colors), paint brushes, water cups, paper * Please see attached PDF

Week 11:
Materials: Acrylic paint or paint of your choice, liquid soap (you choose colors), paint brushes, water cups, canvas, * Please see attached PDF*