Kids' Creative Journalling

ABOVE: Ivie's Travel Journal includes collaged elements, decorative writing, and a black and white photograph she took. BELOW: Annie's journal page was collagedfrom a stencil she made and tissue papers. Over the weekend, we tied up the fall session of children's Creative Journalling Workshops. We met on alternate weeks created pages using monotype, stamp carving, stencil making, decorative text, 3D page construction and collage. Students ranged in age from 5 to 13, and all of them have enthusiastically embraced journalling. A big warm thanks to the parents of my students - encouraging your child to find their own expressive voice is a tremendous gift. I thoroughly enjoyed working alongside each of my "kids," and look forward to seeing many of them return. Our next workshop begins in January - the classes are an hour and a half on alternating Sunday afternoons. Enrollment includes all materials' costs - the students need only bring a blank book and a little bit of imagination. Over the next 2 months I'll be researching and trying out new materials and techniques, so that we will have a realm of new experiments and ideas to try on. Classes will be held at Little Monsters (downtown Lake Orion) from 1-2:30 on January 16th and 30th, February 13th and 27th, and March 13th. You may enroll your child in all 5 for $60 or choose individual sessions at $15 each. I'll be happy to put together a special certificate should you want to gift the workshops to a child. If you are interested, please let me know! Classes have limited enrollment and I anticipate them filling up quickly! Thanks for looking at, and sharing, my artwork with your friends and family - Kim ksantini@turtledovedesigns.com PS grownUP Journalling will meet on Thursday, January 20th and 27th from 6-8pm at Little Monsters. Come and see what your kids are all excited about! PPS And if you're really curious, join us on Thursday, January 13th for a book making class with Pat McGraw. Phone Little Monsters to get enrolled - 248-814-8697. Are You Local? Little Monsters and I teamed up, building a great basket of journalling supplies, including enrollment for one lucky kid in the Winter Creative Journalling workshop (at right). We donated the basket (contents pictured below) to the Friends of the Orion Township Library for a silent auction benefitting 2011's Battle of the Books program. If you don't know about Battle of the Books, pull up a chair and let me tell you! The Battle is a quiz game based on a reading list carefully chosen by our librarians to challenge, inspire and engage readers. 5th grade students form small teams, recruit a parent/teacher/young adult as coach, and have a little over 4 months to read about 14 titles. The teams convene on a Saturday in March for a showdown to see who knows the reading material best. Participants then earn the right to attend the closing assembly, where a guest author/illustrator (usually someone that was part of the Battle Reading List) talks and all the kids receive recognition. Battle of the Books is just one of the many wonderful ways our community encourages our children. So if you can, please head on over to the library before November 29th and support this most excellent program by bidding on our basket (or one of the other 19!).