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Thinking of doing a workshop/class for kids


amyole

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So, today the staff was asked to consider if they want to teach at all during the summer sessions (yes, summer!). At first I thought I'd have to do something with my subject, but then I started thinking about what I could do with miniatures. I'm trying to imagine what I would do and I'm not sure where to start. I can choose how many days/week to do this, approx. 4 weeks, and how many hours/day. I was thinking (max) 2 days/week, for 2 hours each. I would offer it to 10 - 14 year-olds.

Has anyone here done this before? What worked/didn't work?

Should I look into doing a room box with them? Should I just concentrate on accessories or dolls that could be hand-made? What about waiting for glue & paint to dry? 

I am open to any and all suggestions, and once I have something concrete to offer, then I think I'll be able to make the decision if I want to commit the time & energy on it.

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A room box is a good, creative way to let kids express themselves.  The glue/ paint can dry between sessions.  Getting the kids to use math, language & reasoning skills in a fun activity will help them next school year (hopefully) and actually using their hands to do something other than to play games on their phones might rub off.

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I just asked my neighbor and her daughter. They felt that a roombox is another diorama and they are  sick of doing multiple diorama's during the school year. Miniatures peeked their interest. Maybe themed minies like bedroom items: perfume bottles, hat boxes, purses made from those small black paper clips, fluffy slippers. A mini a day until they have a nice little collection.

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My grandchildren are7, 10 and 12. They do dioramas in school, and actually like them, but they really like their dollhouses. Both the boys, who use theirs' for action figures, and my granddaughter who loves having her own house to decorate.

Does the school have any money budgeted for this? The Primrose is a great little house for kids to build and decorate, but it would probably be less expensive to make foam core boxes. If you have access to a mat cutter with a foam core blade, you could cut the walls, floors and ceilings yourself ahead of time, and it wouldn't take long. You wouldn't really have to have windows or a door.

They might love building and decorating their own little rooms, whether they are for super heroes, firemen, or a room for a house. Since it would be their own theme, they might be really excited about it.

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Is it possible to do the rooms so they could be put together as a house?  And at the end of the course the kids could, if they wanted, take their boxes home and make additional boxes to make their own houses.  Mainly they'd be making the little furnishings, accessories, etc, to finish whatever type of room they're making.

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Early morning thoughts off the top of my head:

There's a big difference in small motor skills and attention span and general interests between 10-year-olds and 14-year-olds, and that's not taking individual differences into account. Can you narrow the age span? It might help to focus on a specific project. A 14-year-old is more likely to have the patience to work through the details of a more complex project than a 10-year-old.

Your estimate is for a total of 16 hours of class time. I'd try to estimate what can be accomplished in a two-hour chunk of time and organize the sequence so major glue and paint drying time begins as the session ends. 

Forum member Aggie Mae built several houses as after-school group projects. Might you consider having the students build one house to display at school when it reopens in the fall (so the rest of the students and faculty can ooh and aah over it) and then donate it to a charitable organization rather than do individual projects they can take home? 

What class size are you anticipating? If it's more than eight to ten students, a one-house project might be the way to go. If you do some prep work, like assemble kits of precut mat board for furniture from 1" Minis patterns, some older students could be working on furnishings while the younger ones (or olders ones with more of an interest in construction than furnishings) could be involved with the house construction.

As Sable mentioned early on, your budget will be the key

If you have next to no budget and expect the kids to bring stuff from home, you maybe need to make several examples of found-object, repurposed items ahead of time and dedicate one hour of the first session to helping them to see with a miniaturist's eye through numerous finished examples and a demonstration of  simple item you make with some found items. In the second hour get them engaged by having them each make the demonstration item with the additional found items that you have previously assembled. 

To be totally honest, despite the fact that I am an educator by nature and a former K-12 art teacher, if this were a teaching opportunity offered to me as described in your initial post, I'd turn it down. I think kids would much rather play with miniatures than build them. Granted, the students who enroll will at least be interested in miniatures from the get-go, but their areas of interest and expectations will be all over the map. Trying to develop a course of study that will benefit each of them will be something akin to trying to put mercury back into a broken thermometer.**

You've received some good observations. I'll be interested to see what you decide to do.

**Yes, youngsters, before the digital age, thermometers used to be thin glass tubes with mercury inside. :D 

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Amy, my grandson is 8 and absolutely loves putting together and painting miniature furniture.  I know this is a little younger than the students who will be in your class, but it they are attracted to miniatures they will have fun with just about anything. Maybe you can get a hardware store to donate wood, or perhaps a miniature store could donate a small house kit if you decide to build an entire house. You've gotten alot of good advice, can't wait to see what you decide to do!

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Thank you, everyone, for the input. You have made some excellent points. I'm leaning towards not doing it... DH thinks I should not deal with the stress and enjoy my summer (I have to take a course for re-certification, so that would be enough stress!). I would have to do a lot of prep work because the kids could not touch the exacto knife or other potentially dangerous tools, and I would be in a room without air conditioning. Honestly, I don't know if any of the kids would even be interested. I don't have grandchildren or expect to have them, so while passing on my love of miniatures could be fun, I'm just not sure I want to deal with it in this setting. I'll let you know if I decide to do it.

Many, many thanks to everyone. 

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I think that is a wise choice Amy. Miniatures aren't the easiest thing for a class with limited time and young children.

Besides miniatures, I do a lot of other crafts. One of those is greeting cards.

There was an 8 year old girl who visited her grandmother down the road from our shop a lot during the summer. She came from a broken home, and didn't have much of anything. Emotional support, or anything else. She became fascinated with my cards, so I got out some inexpensive Walmart card stock, paper punches and a few other things, and we played with them.

She came and did crafts with me when she visited her grandmother during the summer for a few years, until there was another crisis and she didn't get back to the island for a year.  All the time we did the crafts, she kept asking me why I was so good to her. She wasn't at all used to having any kind of attention paid to her at all. I let her know it was because she was kind and good, so it was really easy for me to like her and enjoy spending time with her. Now she is 13, and this summer she came back to her grandmother's a few times again. She stopped quite a few times, and just talked. She told me what a difference I had made in her life.

I've done crafts with other kids like that over the years, and some of them are in their 40's now, and still remember the time I spent with them. One on one is easy, and really makes a difference!

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21 minutes ago, kathi17 said:

I think that is a wise choice Amy. Miniatures aren't the easiest thing for a class with limited time and young children.

Besides miniatures, I do a lot of other crafts. One of those is greeting cards.

There was an 8 year old girl who visited her grandmother down the road from our shop a lot during the summer. She came from a broken home, and didn't have much of anything. Emotional support, or anything else. She became fascinated with my cards, so I got out some inexpensive Walmart card stock, paper punches and a few other things, and we played with them.

She came and did crafts with me when she visited her grandmother during the summer for a few years, until there was another crisis and she didn't get back to the island for a year.  All the time we did the crafts, she kept asking me why I was so good to her. She wasn't at all used to having any kind of attention paid to her at all. I let her know it was because she was kind and good, so it was really easy for me to like her and enjoy spending time with her. Now she is 13, and this summer she came back to her grandmother's a few times again. She stopped quite a few times, and just talked. She told me what a difference I had made in her life.

I've done crafts with other kids like that over the years, and some of them are in their 40's now, and still remember the time I spent with them. One on one is easy, and really makes a difference!

My eyes don't well up often but they sure are now. You are a wonderful person.

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Thank you Sable. I was that way all of my life. I just never liked all the garbage you had to put up with with the kids who had everything. We were very comfortable when I was growing up, but I never felt the need to hang out with the popular kids. It was always nicer helping out the kids who really appreciated my friendship, or needed my help. I still prefer making a difference rather than being a social butterfly, and hanging out with superficial people.

My daughter-in-law is now a soccer mom, and I just roll my eyes whenever I listen to the other soccer moms and her when we are out there visiting.  I get along very well with her and her friends, but I can't imagine living my life like that!

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The dollar store may be your friend here.  Our Dollar Tree sometimes has unfinished doll furniture that could be painted or decorated.  Thrift shops sometimes have interesting things like old ribbon or interesting buttons or beads , you know, things that can be repurposed.  Craft stores have interesting Charms for jewelry that can pe purposed for miniatures.

I tell my daughters to "think in miniature" when looking at stuff.  Lots of things can be used for dollhouses that weren't actually made for dollhouses.

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Just throwing out another idea here- what about a roombox based on a favorite book? They could pick the book obviously, and instead of doing a regular room box, they could either hollow out an old book (a big one like a dictionary) or construct something that resembles a book. Then You could show them some basic techniques and they could make mini's that go along with the story they chose.

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22 hours ago, havanaholly said:

The big box craft stores used to carry boxes that were to be finished as books; I wonder if they still do?

Or this! I just figured this could be easily related to any content area- I know in our school there is a big push right now for reading and writing across the curriculum, so even if your speciality isn't English or ELA, it could relate easily.

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Hi Amy,

I'm coming at this late, been away for a bit, but if you (or anyone else) do decide to do something, send me a message or let me know. I used to do miniatures with my fourth grade students, both as part of math class and as extra after school "just for fun" classes. It's been a while, but I can fill you in on some of the projects and techniques we did that always worked well, even with kids as young as 9-10. Though it can be time consuming, it's totally possible to make some great minis with them--you just have to do some pre-planning and understand what level they're ready to work at.

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11 hours ago, MaryKate said:

Hi Amy,

I'm coming at this late, been away for a bit, but if you (or anyone else) do decide to do something, send me a message or let me know. I used to do miniatures with my fourth grade students, both as part of math class and as extra after school "just for fun" classes. It's been a while, but I can fill you in on some of the projects and techniques we did that always worked well, even with kids as young as 9-10. Though it can be time consuming, it's totally possible to make some great minis with them--you just have to do some pre-planning and understand what level they're ready to work at.

I'd also love to know some of your lesson plans for making mini's!

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