Sunshine on a winter’s day holds enough heat to warm the heart and inspire the mind.
Debbie Smith
Welcome to Winter & the School Holidays.
Winter has arrived and the thermometer has dropped slightly and things are a little chilly, but the weather is still beautiful, even in all its crispness.
The school holidays are fast approaching. Once the holidays arrive everyone will be able to breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy their beautiful children. Finding things to do can sometimes be a challenge, but we’ve got you covered here at StoryBox Arts, especially if your children love the visual arts.
Our very first After School program and our Saturday morning program kicked off during Week 3 of Term 2.
The dates for Term 3 are posted on our DebbieSmithAuthor website. Go to our dedicated StoryBox Arts page for detailed information on Term 3 dates, as well as our Term 2 School Holiday program. During the two weeks of holidays, we will be offering seven (7) opportunities for workshops each week. So hopefully there will be a time to suit everyone.
We Need Your Help
StoryBox Arts is a new and local small business that offers children’s art workshops, along with creative writing. We rely on help from our community to continue to develop and grow.
We need your assistance to help Debbie continue her passion to deliver quality artistic programs for our beautiful local and visiting children. Our programs are delivered professionally, with creativity and imagination at the forefront of our minds when creating the curriculum. First and foremost, we want our StoryBox Arts family to enjoy themselves and have fun in a safe environment.
If you know any families or friends who may not have heard of us or the wonderful workshops we deliver, Debbie asks if you would kindly share this email with them so they can connect with us. Another helpful way you can help is to share this information with your school, daycare, kindy, and library communities so they know we offer quality programs.
Word of mouth is the ultimate and best recommendation we could hope for.
StoryBox Arts and Debbie offer tokens of appreciation to our active StoryBox Arts families who recommend us.
Your recommendation will certainly help plant some seeds.
To take advantage of your Little Seeds Token of Appreciation reward, please ask and remind your friends or family members to make sure they let us know you recommended us.
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.
Kindy to Prep/Yr 1 …
It is wonderful to watch our youngsters grow and develop their skills and knowledge.
During our debut term of seven weeks, we concentrated on a number of aspects of basic foundational art knowledge and skills, including lines, patterns, geometric shapes, spatial awareness, overlapping, texture, primary and complementary colours, and collaging; the list continues.
Giving pre-school children time to process and explore, along with generous dollops of patience is important. They practiced using scissors, gluing, and many fine, and gross motor skills, along with important skills of following instructions.
Our StoryBox Art family members experience a variety of paint mediums, oil, and wax pastels and surfaces. They are given many opportunities during each workshop to exercise the freedom of making their own choices in support of the art they are creating.
StoryBox Arts’ mantra is … “stories told through art and words”
Many workshop art lessons are linked to children’s literature. We love exploring the marriage of words with illustrations.
Some titles we used this past term include:
Children’s picture book: If You Meet an Elephant by Debbie Smith
Children’s picture book: Art by Patrick McDonnell
Poem: Unicorns by unknown author
Children’s picture book: Bitsy by Nicki Greenberg
Our youngsters practised filling their pages with bright colours. Afterwards we painted over our bright colours with black paint and made a scratch art design.
“I really loved watching the colours disappear!” E – aged 4
“It was fun using all the different coloured crayons!” W – aged 3
“I love all the pretty colours!” – W – aged 2.5
Yr 2 – Yr 6 …
Our StoryBox Arts’ Yr 2-6 program allows students time to explore, process, and build upon many foundational areas of skills and knowledge of the visual arts, including line, patterns, spatial awareness, blending, shading, overlapping, perspective, texture, and the study of the colour wheel, to name but a few.
We provide a safe and secure space for our StoryBox Arts family to build confidence, experiment with their own ideas, and eventually share their creations and ideas with peers. We remind our students to be patient and kind to themselves and to transform ‘mistakes’ into creations. At StoryBox Arts, there’s no room for perfection. We get messy because art is messy. We make mistakes and that’s ok. We have fun. At StoryBox Arts, we are all about the process and journey of the art experience. Students are given many opportunities during each workshop to exercise the freedom to make their own choices in support of the art they are creating.
The StoryBox Arts’ mantra is … “stories told through art and words” and our program links words to stories, poetry, and children’s literature wherever possible.
Students experiment with a variety of mediums, including, but not limited to, watercolour and acrylics, guided drawings, observational drawings, pop art, and printing.
Click here to access February’s blog post titled, Your Art – Your Story
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up?”
Pablo Picasso
True authenticity is when life gets messy and you end up with a big smile on your face.
Does art have a place in your heart?
Click here to access March’s blog post,
SPICY RUSTS & CINNAMON
“Autumn is here and ready to spice up our lives
with the richness of her jewels of
golds, rusts, and cinnamon…”
Debbie Smith
Inspiring Nature
It’s an amazing time of the year to kick start some inspiration into your life as well as your child’s.
With big booty bottoms and flip flappy ears, If You Meet an Elephant is a rollicking ride through the ups and downs of an unlikely friendship. It’s a triumphant celebration of the acceptance of new and diverse friends. Join in the delight with this ‘must-read out loud’ rhyming story jam-packed with good fun and gorgeous illustrations.
A percentage of every sold book will the donated to the wonderful work of IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare) and their baby elephant orphanage project in Zambia. Thank you for your support.
Buy your copy today!
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