art journaling for children.

During my placement, my colleagues would like that I'm doing a project with the girls and I thought I could do a kind of "Art Journal Workshop". I like this idea because I am positve about the fact that children are able to create the most beautiful things, when they get encouraged to express themselves through art. They don't think so much about the outcome of their work than adults do.

I convinced my superior of this idea so I started to research a bit and I found plenty of informations - all in english, I have to admit, cause in Germany, art journaling is relatively unknown. That's also a reason, why I like to teach it to children. For me it's a new experience too (I discovered art journaling this summer, but heard of it months before).

Before I start the workshop, I have to explain, what an Art Journal is about.

Here are some facts I found:

• It’s a book about you and your live, feelings and thoughts
• You can draw and write whatever you want
• It’s for self-exploration and freedom of expressions
• It’s a safe place to play around with your creativity
• There are no rules – no guidelines

It might be that the girls won’t know what to draw, to write or which materials to use.

They could:

• Create a character who’s exploring the journal
• Doodling
• Preserve their dreams, fears, hopes and wishes
• Listen to music while being creative
• collecting all things that catch their eye, like newspaper articles, party invitations, movie tickets, photographies, quotes…

Things I could do:

• Teaching some simple techniques for creating backgrounds with paints, watercolours, crayons, doodling…
• Creating lists with topics and themes like family, dreams, the favourite colour…
• Prompts, like: I reclaim, What I want other people to know about me is, If I was a character in my own book I would be….

While I got through all those inspiring site, I came across a book, called "The Creative Journal for Children" by Lucia Capacchione. It might be a good thing, to read it...

Oh, and I wonder what might be better adapted for children: a bound (spiral binding) journal or a selfmade one?! The latter could be a workshop itself....

What do you think of this idea, and do you have some tipps?!
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sources: squidoo, daisy yellow, homeschooling-ideas, why children should journal, stretcher, melody nunez, how to describe art journaling