T Stands for Illuminated Initial Bookmarks with Middle Schoolers, Again.

I had the pleasure of teaching illuminated initial bookmarks to two more classes of 9 and 10 year olds from the same school as last time. Talking with other teachers, this age group is supposed to be the most difficult to teach. If you're teaching children, or thinking about teaching children, my friend, Andy Fish broke down the age groups and wrote about the pros and cons of teaching babies to adults. Andy also labeled the pre-teens as "children born of hell."

I had two, one hour classes with the 9 and 10 year olds to teach.. I don't know whether it was a combination of the school and parenting, or the kids being on their best behavior because they wanted to make sure they were on Santa's nice list. These kids were well behaved, excited to be at the museum, and engaged.

The class was only an hour long so I find it helpful to have a small project and to break the project down into steps and show examples of what they can do. 

We talk about decisions artist need to make. Whether to hold the paper in landscape or 

or portrait. Whether to use only one initial

or to use all three.

We talk about some of the things they like such as pets

or things they like to do like playing soccer and basketball.

I talk about how medieval artists used real gold or silver to add bling to their work. We can't use real gold or silver in these classes, but we have gold and silver markers. Boy howdy, are those gold and silver markers a big hit. If you're teaching kids, make sure you're supplied with metallic markers.

I tell them that medieval artist pretty much worked in traditional colors of red, green, and blue, but that we aren't limited to that color palette. They can use any colors they like

I tell them how they can put the initials in a box, if they want.

This little girl was making a bookmark for her mom and included things her mother loved. Coffee (which is my drink reference), ramen noodles, hearts, and stars.

This little dude was a medieval artist in a former life with his fancy initials.

The gold and silver markers are a godsend

I try to keep the class so we all work on the same step at the same time. I think it helps them to have a road map to follow. Not just the kids, but I do this for my adult classes, too. 

When the Eldest was in grammar school, she would race through the project before the teacher had finished giving directions. There will always be a couple of kids like that.

Make sure you have another project or two for them to work on while their classmates finish the project. Fortunately for me the coordinator for this class, had several sheets of coloring book pages of medieval initials, knights, and ladies available to color.

My fallback plan is having a stack of larger drawing paper so they can draw whatever their hearts desire.

Sometimes the class gets too noisy. I find Gentlemen! Ladies! May I have your attention, please. Usually works. Sometimes I have an assistant who claps and chants things like One, two, three, eyes on me! And can instantly bring silence to the room. Be sure to thank your assistant for helping you to keep order and to keep kids on task. 

Drop by hosts, Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog to find out what the rest of the T Stands For gang is up to. If you want to play, include in your Tuesday post a beverage or container for a beverage. Don't forget to link your blog to Bleubeard and Elizabeth's page.