Order Art Instructional DVDs

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Product

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Product

Rainy Day Art DVD
$19.95 ($14.95)

World Art DVD
$19.95 ($14.95)

 

Rainy Day Art 2 DVD
$19.95 ($14.95)

Art on a Shoestring DVD
$19.95 ($14.95)

 

World Art 2 DVD
$19.95 ($14.95)

Purchase any 2 items on this page and receive those items at the discounted price.

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Good TV time for kids with art DVDs that stimulate creativity

By Daniel P. Finney
Of the Post-Dispatch
04/26/2004

Sooner that most parents would like, school will be out for summer - and many will have to invent things for the kids to do all day, every day, for three-months.

Mary Institute St. Louis Country Day School art teacher Cherie Kassin has a solution: Put the kids in front of the TV and spin a DVD.

But instead of letting a cavalcade of cartoons, action movies and other mind-numbing entertainment flash before their eyes, Kassin would give the kids an art lesson or two.

The veteran teacher has put together a series of art projects for children in kindergarten through 8th grade on a pair of DVDs produced by St. Louis-based Jumby Bay Studios. The DVDs, "Rainy Day Art" and "World Art," each offer three hours of lessons on creating everything from pipe-cleaner butterflies to replica ancient Roman masks.

"You can plop your kid down in front of an art DVD and have their minds more active than watching a cartoon, sit-com or reality TV series," Kassin says.

Each lesson comes with a supply list that can be printed out from a home computer that has a DVD-ROM drive.

Kassin, who has taught art for 22 years, spoke to us recently about children's art projects and keeping creativity alive.

Q: What made you decide to put your classroom lessons on DVD?
A: I've worked with families who home-school and a lot of them asked me to tutor their kids in art because they couldn't teach the art requirements. Also, in these days of tight budgets at schools, it seems like the first things to go are the art and music classes. I'm very passionate about art and believe it's an essential part of learning.

Q: How much parental supervision do these DVDs require? I have visions of kids spraying glitter all over the living room.

A: You have to know your child. Some activities, especially for the older children, can be done alone. Others could be done with an older sibling, a parent or a baby sitter. All of the projects can be simplified and altered to fit any age group depending on what the child's ability is.

Q: Are the projects in your classes and on your DVDs the kind of projects you would have wanted to work on when you were an elementary or middle school student?

A: Oh gosh, yes. We never made stuff like this when I was young. I don't think we ever made masks. I have a lot of adult friends who say they wish they could make the things we do in art class.

Q: When you're putting together a lesson, what goals do you have in mind?

A: Well, there may be 10 or 15 minutes of discussion about the history of the project we're doing. For example, if we're making a Roman mask, I may explain what Romans used these masks for. Mostly, I'm looking for ways for the kids to be creative and express themselves while learning how to use different media. Ultimately, I believe that, at the elementary and middle school levels, kids need to be creating in a studio art class.

Q: Why do kids who haven't been to school yet seem instinctively to know what to do with a crayon but as the same kids gets older, they often become less willing to try drawing and art?

A: Some of it is social development. As people get older, they become less willing to put themselves out there through expression for fear of getting made fun of. Some of it is that artistic creativity gets buried under other forms of expression such as athletics or other academic successes.

Q: On the DVD, you do all the projects before our eyes. Do you worry that your finished project will intimidate a youngster working on the same project, you know, so they say, "Well, mine isn't as good as Cherie's?"

A: You know, that never happens in the classroom. The kids may look at mine and say, "Yours is really good," but it never stops them from creating their own thing. And you know what? Almost always what the kids do is better than something I can do because they're so fertile and creative. It's very rewarding to watch. There's something just so . . . freeing about seeing all that creativity get loose.