What to Include in Your Art to Go Bag
ART TO GO
IAEA members are invited to get involved in an exciting program called Art To Go. It is an opportunity to share your expertise, as an art educator, with children who are in the hospital battling an illness. It is your chance to give from the heart by donating some time and a few materials to help children take their mind off of their sickness while they create art. Each hospitalized child would prefer to be in school learning with their peers, but are presently on a very different and difficult journey. You can help bring the art room to them and perhaps some healing along the way. All you need to do is provide an art lesson,including supplies, that would be suitable for a particular grade levelfrom pre-school to high school and conducive to a hospital room setting. These materials would then be placed in a large zip lock bag.
What to include in your Art To Go bag:
Create a very basic lesson plan that a young child, adolescent, young adult, parent or volunteer could understand.For consistency, an Art-To-Go lesson plan template is available on the IAEA website under Forms. (
Include all materials required to create the artwork in your lesson. All materials need to be new or never used to prevent the risk of infection. (Please use pre-cut or measured papers whenever possible. If you do want to include scissors, the hospital will only allow plastic scissors. Glue sticks are probably easier than liquid glue for paper projects and the hospital mentioned that glitter glue or other materials similar would not be acceptable as many children are confined to their beds. Please do not include anything that may be considered toxic or harmful to someone who may be compromised by illness.) Suggestions of lessons: origami, paper collage or sculpture, creative paper airplanes, pan watercolors (include a water cup), weaving (paper or yarn), sketchbook drawing ideas (include small sketchbook), oil pastel or crayon designs, small wood assemblage (include pre-cut wood pieces, glue), etc. Please consider all age groups. Many middle and high school students are at the hospital and would love the opportunity to create and express themselves through art with the use of a guided lesson.
A picture or two of the finished product would be helpful. If you teach this lesson, perhaps take a few pictures of student work to include. Also, if there are steps in your lesson that you can visually show, you may want to include that. (Example: paper folding steps in an origami lesson)
A 2 or 2.5 gallon plastic zip lock bag to put all materials for each project.
Please consider submitting 3 – 5 of the same lesson. You may submit as many different lessons that you want.
Bring your Art To Go bags to the IAEA 2009 Conference, November 5-7 at the Lisle Hilton and drop them off near the registration table or give them to someone to drop off for you. Each bag will be labeled and delivered to Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago at the conclusion of the conference. Please DO NOTwrite your name or name of your school anywhere on your lesson or the bag. A label will be put on each bag that will state that an Illinois Art Education Association Teacher donated this Art To Go lesson. Your kindness may bring a smile to the face of a sick child while providing some needed inspiration. Thank you in advance for your giving nature and warm heart!
Sincerely,
Judy Doebler
President, Illinois Art Education Association