Homeschool Group Art Club

We had our last meeting of our homeschool group art club yesterday. I finally felt that I had a handle on what supplies to bring:
- music on the iPod (if I don't have music already, don't bother hunting for stuff at the library, just get it from iTunes)
- prints for the artist (full page home printouts are okay if nothing else is available)
- coloring pages for the artist (I found a new way of creating coloring pages from any picture)
- journaling / notebooking pages
- children's story-book featuring the artist for the preschoolers
- children's biography of the artist

We had a good turnout for this last meeting. The kids had fun and the moms helped out. We got off to a shaky start when I was unable to pawn-off the introductory activities to another mom, but things got better when the kids started their small-group work. The kids stayed on task and I was amazed that the oldest group of kids was still working hard when all the younger kids had run off. I got to sit at Sparkle's table and discuss a picture with them. Guiding a small group is my favorite part. I can't handle corralling the preschoolers with their non-existent attention spans, but it's fun to help the school-age kids notice things and make connections. I'm still working on my pet peeves: getting each kid to say at least one thing about the picture, getting the kids to write their names on their papers, and getting the kids to put away their stuff at the end instead of leaving a jumbled mess on the table.

It was really *hot* after lunch during the nature club but that's another topic.

[INSERT PICTURES]

I'm not sure what next year will hold for the art club. At first I thought it would stay the same, and just change up the artists. However, some of the moms were talking of expanding the day with more activities. We'll see. This year was my first experience co-leading an activity for the group. I suck at leading group activities. I am far more of a follower than a leader. Tell me what to do, and I'll do it or explain why not. Ask me to lead something and I usually fall apart. Fortunately I had a wonderful lady co-lead the art club with me.

Ack that most of this post is just random sentences. The text is formatted to look like a series of paragraphs, but they don't hang together. Oh well. I don't care and I don't want to take the time to make sense. This post is mostly just a placeholder to remind me to post the few pictures I took yesterday.