STEM: Cardboard Box Challenge

So it's about time I talk about STEM, particularly with regards to dramatic play and engineering! This blog post is especially dedicated to Caine Monroy who inspired the Cardboard Box Challenge with Caine's Arcade. Essentially, a filmmaker went to buy a door handle for his car and he met this 9 year old boy named Caine who had spent his summer building this elaborate cardboard arcade inside his dad's used auto part store. Caine invited him to play, and he couldn't pass up his "FunPass deal." The filmmaker then decided to make a short 10 minute film all about Caine's Arcade and let me tell you... this film is VERY moving. It totally brought me to tears! The video is posted below or can be viewed at the following Vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/40000072

Eventually hundreds of thousands of dollars started pouring into Caine's college fund and the Imagination Foundation was born. They then launched a "Global Day of Play" as part of their "Global Cardboard Challenge." The day takes place on the first Saturday of October (the anniversary of the 'surprise flashmob' the filmmaker & community did to make Caine's day in the Caine's Arcade short film). 

With the Cardboard Box Challenge, friends, family, co-workers and community members all over the world can come out to play at local events, celebrating the creativity and imagination of kids everywhere. Child directed play is not only fun, it's extremely powerful for self esteem and learning. Here are just a few of the benefits:

• When children pretend they are motivated and engaged in learning. 
• Pretending helps to stimulate memory and facilitate understanding of their world.
• Pretending increases their ability to use symbolic communication 
• Participating in arts like drama helps to develop analytical skills, an eye for detail, and expanded descriptive vocabulary through listening and responding. 
• Physical development is promoted as children learn to use different parts of their bodies to express themselves.

“Build anything you can dream,” is the motto behind the Cardboard Challenge.  In addition to instilling creativity within children, the Cardboard Box Challenge inspires children to become engineers for a day.  Playing with cardboard boxes and other building materials develops math and science skills too, helping children learn about gravity, balance, shapes, and problem solving. If this were a library program, you could even provide challenges for children and families to complete if they so choose:

Challenge it:

• How tall can you make a tower?
• Build a tunnel you can crawl through
• Build something as a team
• Build something in five minutes
• Build a game you can play

The other thing I love about the Cardboard Challenge is that it reminds parents that they don't have to have a lot of expensive gadgets to have a good time with their kids. Children can easily use everyday materials to make something fun, functional or beautiful! As a child, my favorite time in the world was when my parents would buy a new refrigerator or appliance because the box that it would come in was always a ginormous box that could be transformed into something magnificent. That large box could be a spaceship, a time traveling device, a submarine, or anything my mind could come up with. I am so blessed to have had parents who always allowed me time to play freely with random materials at hand.  It is probably why I am the creative individual I am to this day :) I was never afraid to take risks and be creative. 

I seriously hope to someday implement an imaginative day of play like The Cardboard Box Challenge at a library where I work! Read more about it at http://cardboardchallenge.com/

"Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun." --Mary Lou Cook

Sources:
"Caine's Arcade Global Day of Play & Cardboard Challenge." Caine's Arcade. 2015. Web. 13 Sept. 2015.
"Stem Sprouts: Science Technology Engineering and Math Teaching Guide." Boston Children's Museum. Web. 10 Sept. 2015.
 "Young Children and the Arts: Making Creative Connections: A Report of the Task Force on Children’s Learning and the Arts: Birth to Age Eight." Arts Education Partnership, 1998. Web. 13 Sept. 2015. .

Painting with Scissors!

Henri Matisse (French Modern Artist, 1869–1954)

This program is for kids in grades 1-3 and focuses on creating art inspired by the French Modern Artist, Henri Matisse. 

When Matisse was older he was struggling with illness and reduced mobility. Because of this, Matisse was not able to paint like he used so he began experimenting with another medium: papercutting. Cutting dramatic shapes from painted paper allowed him to still create striking new works of art. Twenty of these were published in a book under the title Jazz, because of the influence of music on his work, and the spirit of jazz-like spontaneity that influenced his creative process. During this program children will listen to jazz music while creating artwork, just as Matisse once did!

Printable children's biography on Henri Matisse, Matisse coloring sheets, and more at the following link: http://makingartfun.com/htm/f-maf-art-library/henri-matisse-biography.htm

Objective: Explore the French modern artist Henri Matisse and experiment with art using gouache, scissors, and paper to recreate a work of their own after one of his cut-outs.

Books:
Henri’s Scissors by Jeanette Winter
When Pigasso Met Mootisse by Nina Laden

Supplies:
Jazz music on CD
CD player
Paintbrushes
Paint dishes
Gouache
Plain white cardstock paper
Colored construction paper
Butcher paper
MarkersScissors
Gluesticks
Images of Matisse’s artwork

Step 1:  Play jazz music in the background to set the mood for the program. You can explain to children that this type of music is what inspired Matisse to make such spontaneous works of art out of painted paper. So to begin,  first have children play with gouache by painting on a white piece of card stock paper, covering the whole piece of paper and then set aside to dry. Have paint available in bold Matisse colors like blue, orange, yellow, and green.
Step 2:  Read Henri’s Scissors by Jeanette Winter. By reading this book, children will learn that Matisse’s cut outs were created late in Matisse's life when he was confined to a wheelchair, and could not paint anymore.
Step 3: Show children images of Matisse’s cut outs to get an idea of what his art really looked like.
Step 4:  Each child will cut out one largee shape using a full 8” by 11’’ piece of colored paper. Then place the shapes onto the butcher paper. By now, the gouache papers that children painted earlier will have dried so children can create cut-outs from that paper too. Have children sketch shapes lightly on the paper prior to cutting. Remember to hang up many examples of Matisse's art around the room for inspiration.
Step 5: Glue the cut outs down to the large sheet of butcher paper. Have each child decide where they want their placements to go. Agree upon a title for the large masterpiece and add the date at the bottom right corner. For example: Library Jazz, June 26, 2015.
Step 6: If time permits, give children a blank bookmark to color freely or to make a "mini" collage on. They make take this home to complete if they’d like.
Step 7: Hang final Matisse-inspired masterpiece in the Children’s Department!

Here are some pictures of the children from the program I did:

“There are wonderful things in real jazz, the talent for improvisation, the liveliness, the being at one with the audience,” Matisse wrote. That spirit will be cultivated and celebrated during this library program. 

Picture Books for the Young Budding Artist

Is there a young budding artist in your life? Consider surprising them with one of these beautifully illustrated picture books for children in preschool through grade 3! They're all available at the Naperville Public Library!

 Art by Patrick McDonnell. Rhyming text describes how little Art makes passionate zigzags, "scribbles that squiggle," lots of dots and "the curliest cue." His creations, rendered in watercolor and crayon, become a neighborhood scene and the location of Art's dream. He awakens to find his artwork proudly displayed on the family refrigerator, "put there by Mother 'cause mother loves Art."

Danny's Drawing Book by Sue Heap. A snowy trip to the zoo with his friend Ettie prompts Danny to write an illustrated story with pencil sketches in his drawing book. Danny draws himself and Ettie into the story and suddenly the friends are on an exciting adventure with an elephant and an aardvark. This imaginative story is sure to inspire many children to write their own illustrated stories this winter!

Jeremy Draws a Monster by Peter McCarty. This adorable picture book features Jeremy and his unique illustration of a monster that comes to life! Suddenly, the blue, squiggly, horned monster demands that Jeremy draw him a whole assortment of objects. "Draw me a sandwich. I’m hungry!" "Draw me a telephone. Somebody might call," the monster exclaims. How will Jeremy ever get rid of this annoying monster?

Lily Brown's Paintings by Angela Johnson, Illustrated by E. B. Lewis. Lilly Brown loves spending time with her family, but when she begins painting, the stars visit sidewalk cafes, the trees wear hats and drink tea, the fruit at the market stand laughs out loud, and the wind carries stories across the ocean. Vivid watercolor illustrations celebrate children’s imaginations and depict the magic that the young girl finds in art.

A Day With No Crayons by Elizabeth Rusch. A Day With No Crayons is a delightful children's picture book celebrating creativity. When young Liza draws on the white wall with crayons, her mother takes them away. With the crayons gone, all the color drains from Liza's world. What does the budding artist do? She squirts her toothpaste angrily and stomps through mud puddles. Through these acts, Liza inadvertently creates art—and eventually discovers color in the world around her.

When Pigasso Met Mootisse by Nina Laden. In this charming tales of modern artists, a cleverly named pig, Pigasso, and a colorful bull, Mootisse and Pigasso start out as neighbors but end up fueding when they start criticizing one another’s work. The painters end up with a colorful mess by ultimately building a fence between the two. Based loosely on the real-life relationship between Picasso and Matisse, this tale is a wonderful tribute to these exceptional talents and to the concept of accepting the ideas of others. This title is sure to be perfect for any young artist’s personal library.

Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg. This riveting children’s picture book encourages children to view mistakes not as failures but opportunities. As the book states, "A torn piece of paper" (the cardboard is actually torn)… is just the beginning (of an alligator’s smile). Throughout this book, various spills and paint blobs are transformed into animals, a folded sheet of paper becomes a penguin’s head, and most notably, a panel with a hole in the center telescopes outward, accordion-style, to reveal a tiny creature way at the bottom. This inspirational book is sure to inspire children to take creative risks and not condemn their mistakes.

Recent research demonstrates a correlation between the arts and higher academic performance. In the report, "Learning, Arts and the Brain", seven universities presented several studies discussing how visual arts, music, and dance training and skill positively impact learning (The Dana Foundation, 2008). To encourage artistic expression among children, rouse their creative spirit by checking out one of the above illustrated picture books!