Long time no blog!

I've been quite neglectful of this blog of late - running the business on a day to day basis while juggling it with family life is quite a challenge in itself!

The ARTventurers summer classes went really well and I can't believe that we're already on the countdown to half term! We've got some great Spooky Halloween sessions lined up for October half term - on the Tuesday at Ashbrooke and the Thursday at Washington Arts Centre. Think pop up ghosts, creepy spiders, big black bats and eyeball painting.....it's going to be lots of creative (and sometimes messy!) fun! And if you're coming along to one of the sessions please feel free to come along in Spooky fancy dress (I will be!!)

Talking of Washington Arts Centre, I'm thrilled that we're going to be running a weekly Little ARTventurers class there from November. This will be in addition to our Tuesday class at Ashbrooke. The centre is such a vibrant, creative space in the heart of the community and it's great to be part of it in a small way. The Little Potters course there over the summer was a huge success and I also hope to run some more sessions for older children (6+) there in the run up to Christmas so watch this space!

Some of the handprint tiles created at the Little Potters summer sessions - fab work!

ARTventurers Autumn Newsletter

ARTventurers Autumn

Newsletter

Spooky Halloween Craft Party!

We’ve got some fantastic spooky crafts planned for our half term sessions – pumpkin lanterns, creepy spiders, witches and ghosts and lots more! Pre booking essential, £6 per child including all materials and refreshments for the little ones. Suitable for ages 18m-7yrs.

Tues 25^th Oct – St Johns, Ashbrooke

Thurs 27^th Oct – Washington Arts Centre

Little ARTventurers

We’ve had a great couple of weeks so far this term exploring and creating with our “Space” and “Bugs” themed sessions. Coming up – “Under the Sea”, “All about Me”, “Autumn”, “Crunchy, Scrunchy Textures” and lots more!. Little ARTventurers is suitable for children aged 18 months plus – painting, collage, modeling, sensory activities and lots more.

NEW WASHINGTON CLASS!

We’re delighted to be launching a new Little ARTventurers class at Washington Arts Centre on Thursday mornings after half term. It’s a fantastic venue and we really enjoyed running our Little Potters course there over the summer. Little ARTventurers is suitable for pre school age children from 18 months upwards. To book a place contact Fiona - mail@artventurers.co.uk. Sessions are £4.85 per child including materials and refreshments, sibling discount available. We also hope to run some pottery painting activities for children aged 6+ in the run up to Christmas – register your interest now!

Christmas Crafts!

Christmas is a fantastic time of year for childrens art and craft activities – what better excuse for lots of glitter and sparkle?!

Our Christmas craft holiday sessions will be taking place w/c 19^th December in Ashbrooke, Washington and Roker – places are already filling up so book your space now! Suitable for children 18months – 7 years.

Weekend Sessions

 If you can’t make our weekday sessions don’t forget we also run weekend sessions – our Saturday morning Diddy Art club suitable for 4-11 yrs runs at Hawthorn Arts in South Shields and we also run  occasional workshop sessions on Sundays at the Seaburn centre. Watch out for Spooky Crafts on Sun 23^rd Oct and Christmas Crafts on Sun 27^th November!

Birthday parties

Looking to do something a little bit different for your little one’s party? Our creative birthday packages are great fun for age 2-12 years. Themes such as Glitter and Sparkle or Pirates, activities like pottery painting or teddy bear making….let us host the activities and then clean up the mess too!

www.artventurers.co.uk

07775911990 mail@artventurers.co.uk



Summer Holiday fun!

Phew - it's been a busy week for ARTventurers, the first full week of our summer holiday schedule!

Tuesday and Thursday mornings we ran our Little ARTventurers summer fun sessions for children up to 6 years old at Ashbrooke and Roker. Both sessions were fantastic - we made pirate hats, parrots and telescopes, tiaras and wands, got mummy/daddy/gran to draw round us and made life size pirates and princesses and we also tried loot rubbing! Great and very very glittery - the life size drawings were especially popular! I love to do activities like that where the kids can get down on the floor and really get stuck into what they're doing, moving around their artwork - it makes for great creativity.

On Tuesday the Sunderland Echo came to visit the session to take some photos - always tricky to get toddlers to stay still for more than 2 seconds, especially when they're full on engaged with what they're doing but hopefully we've got some great action shots which sum up exactly what ARTventurers is all about - having lots of fun experimenting and creating! The article should be in the paper later this week - watch out for us (and me with a face covered in glitter no doubt!). I'm really pleased that the Echo is supporting us as a local business, having publicity like that really helps spread the word.

Wednesday also saw the first week of our Little Potters course at Washington Arts Centre where we worked with clay to make some handstamped coasters and also tried out different pottery painting techniques on a breakfast mug. Really looking forward to seeing how they've turned out when they come out of the kiln - will try and post some pics!

Tomorrow is a day off with my little ones (fruit picking hopefully) then the weekend is a busy one with two things booked in for Sunday. Sunday morning we're running a craft workshop at the Makers Market at the Seaburn Centre (fabric painting and keyrings) - come along and say hi and treat yourself to some gorgeous handmade goodies. Then later in the day we're off to run some activities at the Leighton Cook family fun day at Quayside Exchange, Sunderland. Leighton is a little local lad - just 4 years old, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 Neuroblastoma June 2010, four days after his 3rd birthday.

Leighton's family and friends have set up a fund to raise the £50,000 they need to raise to send Leighton to Germany is to increase his chances of survival from 30% to 50%. Leightons story is such a heartbreaking cause and I'm just pleased that there is a small something that I can do to help with their fundraising efforts. Please take a minute to pop over to Leightons page to show your support and to see if there is anything that you could do to help them reach their target. http://www.facebook.com/TeamLeighton?sk=wall#!/TeamLeighton?sk=info Thank you!! Next week's holiday sessions - The Very Hungry Caterpillar! Caterpillar hats, butterfly puppets..... it's going to be tons of fun!

Why do we have music at our pre school sessions?

At our Little ARTventurers art and craft classes for pre schoolers we always round the session off with a well deserved snack and a drink and a noisy sing along  joined by Arty the Bear!

For me it’s an integral part of the class structure – the kids absolutely love it, it's part of the routine of the weekly classes and it got me thinking again about the importance of music for babies, toddlers and pre schoolers.

So why is group singing and music making so important for young children?

-         It’s a sociable activity – it stimulates a basic desire to join in and interact with others

-         Music encourages self expression  and self confidence

-         Engaging with music encourages children to develop gross and fine motor skills and coordination – moving and dancing in time to the music and using instruments to tap and shake

-   Sing a longs are great fun!

One of the most fun sing a longs was when we ran a carnival themed session and the children made their own musical shakers as well as party hats and pasta jewellery - they then had loads of fun  using their shakers during singing time! One for this coming term again I think.....:)

And don't forget our Teddy Bears Picnic party on Tuesday 26th July when we'll be teaming up with Music Bugs to run a jam packed session of teddy bear art and craft activities, biscuit decorating and a fab and noisy Music Bugs session! Session is to take place at St Andrews Church, Roker, Sunderland and places are limited so must be pre booked! check out our website http://www.artventurers.co.uk/ for more details!

All About Me Collage Craft Activity - for all ages!

I first used this craft as part of an “All About Me” themed session where we also made a fingerpainted house and created some fantastic self portraits on the painting table!

It's really simple idea and craft but very often the most simple ideas are the best!

It was such a popular craft for younger children that it’s one I’ve taken out and about again and again. Kids love to make their whole family so it’s worth printing out quite a few extra templates – and it’s a craft that can be used as a great learning tool for colours, families and body parts as well as exploring different textures. Older kids can also use it as a scissor practice exercise!

This is what you’ll need

Stiff a4 card

Glue

Pens or crayons

A box of different materials – fabric, card, papers,wool, tissue……..

Firstly, print out the A4 template below onto card – like I say it’s a good idea to print out a few! You should hopefully be able to copy and paste this template and then resize it if needed - if not then you can download templates elsewhere or just draw your own person!

Let your child get creative with the template, materials and glue – dress it, colour it in, add hair (or not!).

You can either leave the person as he/she is on the card – or try cutting it out to make a cardboard doll!

Brum brum beep beep - Transport crafts Part 1!

My 3 year old Isaac loves anything with wheels so here’s a couple of my favourite car themed art and craft activities –

Car Painting

We love to get a huge piece of paper down on the floor, a plate full of paint and some toys cars, trains, diggers – whatever you’ve got in the toy box! Drive through the paint and them vroom vroom around the paper leaving paint tracks behind! Great fun and makes fab and funky patterns, especially if you use lots of different colours. This activity works especially well with a group of kids!

Bubble car craft (for ages 12 months +)

Kids love this cute bubble car craft - it works well for a wide age range as they can put as much detail into it as they like so it's a craft activity I often do for something like a family fun day when I know there'll be lots of different ages along to join in.

Basically all you need is a piece of stiff card, some paper and pens and lots of bits and pieces to decorate the bubble car. I have a big box full of odds and ends of scraps of paper, fabric, sequins, ribbons.. ideal for this type of craft!

Draw or print a bubble car outline onto the card then cut it out.

Cut two window shapes for the window and then two round shapes for the car, I use this as an exercise to get the children drawing round a round object to leave a circle shape.

Have fun decorating and personalising your bubble car!

Egg box bus

I’d love to be able to take credit for this one but it’s not one of my own ideas – I found it on a fab site I came across while  browsing the internet called dlkt kids -  http://www.dltk-kids.com

Grab a large egg box, paint, some glue, paper (including black for the tyres) and pens/crayons. You might want also to use magazine pics for the passengers.

Firstly cut the lid off the egg box as that’s the bit you’re going to be using for the bus.  Cut out some squares along the egg box for the windows. Then let your little one paint it whichever colour he/she wants.

Cut some black circles out – these will be the wheels. Then cut out some magazine pics of faces and stick these on the bus behind the cut out windows for the passengers – or even better, get your child to draw their own passengers which you can then cut out and stick on the bus together!

Happy motoring!

Summer's here - a sandcastle craft!

It's a lovely June sunny morning, I opened my curtains this morning and the sea was sparkling and I'm feeling all summery! So what better than this fab and simple sandcastle craft activity  – grab yourselves the following

-         A piece of stiff A4 card (or bigger if you like!)

-         Some glue – PVA with a spreader or brush is best

-         Sand, either play sand or beach sand

-         Some small pebbles and shells

-         Lolly stick and card

If you’re lucky enough to be able to get to the beach it’s great to go out and collect all of the things you need for this craft together and then you can have tons of fun reminiscing and chatting about the beach when you do this craft. You can buy craft lollisticks (they’re dead cheap and useful for tons of different crafts) – but I prefer to use it as an excuse to get the ice lollies in!

Firstly, draw a simple sandcastle outline on the card. Now this is why the spready glue is better for this craft – get your little one to paint inside the shape with lots of glue. Good practice for older toddlers at trying to keep within the lines – but if they go outside of it no worries!!

Now for the fun/magic bit. Sprinkle lots of sand over the gluey area, count 1-2-3 then shake off the excess sand leaving a sandy sandcastle shape. Use the leftover glue to decorate the castle with the  pebbles and shells and make a flag using the lolly stick and some more card or paper.

For older kids adapt this craft by using kitchen roll tubes and a paper plate. Cover the tubes with glue and roll them in the sand so they're completely covered - then stick to the paper plate with sellotape. More glue and sand on the plate gives the sandcastle a sandy base, then decorate with stones, shells and a flag in the same way!

Happy sandcastle building!!!