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Getting Involved with Kids
By Deb Hayes |
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In our small town,
we are lucky enough to have a small college that’s known for the teachers
it produces as well as a very vibrant extended programs department.
One of the programs gets local folk involved in teaching their specialties
as amateur instructors. I was fortunate to be selected to teach four sessions of polymer clay classes to beginners
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Brittany was my helper. Without her there, I wouldn’t have had the time to try to recognize each child, much less teach anything! She is now a pro with the extruder adapter, and is handy with the blade, too. Thanks, Brittany! |
 One
of the girls, Mikayla, fell in love with the itty-bitty flower molds.
Naturally, we had to build a treasure chest to hold them all! |
 As
in the “real” world, purple and lavender were favorite colors for many
of the girls. Here, Briana makes no excuses—she loves purple! |
 Kennedy
loves purple so much, she decided purple spaghetti was the ticket. |
 One
of the boys in the class has the potential to be a special effects artist
for the movies! Kyle built everything from fake eyes to a NASA headset.
He also liked to tease the girls. |
We started with Magic Eraser Clay, and
as you can see,
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| My students
were between 9 and 14, with a couple of younger exceptions.
On the first day, I was prepared to teach a class of five, and was
very surprised to find 12 students! We managed, though, and since polymer
clay is such an awesome medium, each of the students found the way to express her or himself. I was fortunate enough to have all four of my class sessions
held.
We had a great week each session, and I look forward to the Spring vacation classes later this month. As I found out later, it was the first time in the program’s history that four sections of the same class had enough enrollees to be held. I guess that shows how popular polymer clay is, doesn’t it? |
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