Swanton School Extension's
Thursdays
Artists: Nicole Gadouas, project leader
Anita Michele Parah, prep and assistant
Spring 2017 January-May
I was contacted by the Swanton Elementary School principal
to be part of this new pilot program called
"Extension Thursdays". The idea behind this is that one grade level
each Thursday will have some extended/enrichment learning from 12-3. The
following groups signed up to donate their time to this program, Wildlife
Refuge, Swanton Library, RiseVT, Swanton public safety sectors, and Zumba
Instructors. I represented the Swanton Arts Council. I had to researched what
kind of art project could be executed in 20-30 minute increments, with children
ranging from grades k-4th. Each session on average had 5 groups with
15-20 children. I decided on the project Batik painted flags. The focus was the
practice using primary colors to make secondary colors, while showing the kids
how to use paint resist techniques with materials such as masking tape and
white crayons. The flags were presented to each group of children and they were
shown the resistant techniques offered. Cups of primary tempera paint, brushes,
and palettes were given to each child to freely choose what they wanted to
create on their flags. In grades 1st and K I decided to omit the paint in due to limited time clean
up between each group of students.
Instead I offered paint daubers which brought a whole new level of
possibilities to the project while solving my clean up time issues. All the
remainder materials were donated to the art teacher.
