The Extracurricular Summer Tutor
What is an extracurricular tutor? A person that helps develop the creative and logical sides of the brain outside of the classroom. Can you as a parent do this? YES! And if you follow the suggestions in these next few paragraphs, this summer could be the most rewarding and influential times to bring out the genius in your children.
Fun classes, tours, and projects are the easiest concept to engage young and mature minds in learning. The best way to develop your children’s potential is through the arts. Why the arts? The arts develop the logical side of the brain beyond the normal thinking capacity. The first thing to do is enroll your kids in drawing classes. The Chicago Park District offers classes during the day. Some private schools offer evening courses in drawing classes with a fee from $100 – $150 for six weeks. To make your new job as an extracurricular tutor more fun, you, the parent can participate in this exercise along with your children. It could be a family learning adventure.
After two weeks of art classes, visit the Art Institute of Chicago (ARTIC), 111 South Michigan Avenue, (312) 443-3600, www.artic.edu and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), 220 East Chicago Avenue, (312) 280-2660, www.mcachicago.org. Take your children to both museums in one day. I recommend going to the MCA first because it is more spacious and holds less volume of art than ARTIC. Have your kids look at all the art, pick their favorite, write a one page paper about their selection then sketch it. This is where the drawing classes start to pay off, by taking the students out of the classroom and putting them in the real world environment. It does not matter if your kids cannot sketch like a second-year college art student, encourage them to do their best since there is no grade for the project.
At the Art Institute, visit the miniature home museum located in the lower level. Instruct your children to draw a model as close as possible to one of the homes. Afterward, go to an art supply store and purchase supplies like cardboard or wooden boxes, clay, paint, paper, and miniature wooden dolls and furniture to recreate the miniature home. Boys may be against doing this project, but inform them it is the first step in becoming an architect. Give your children a week to finish the project before your next museum adventure, which is a once in a life time treat currently housed at the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI).
This summer, MSI, 5700 South Lake Shore Drive, (773) 684-1414, www.msichicago.org is hosting an exhibit of Leonardo Da Vinci’s inventions. View the renowned artist inventions through interactive displays and models. The exhibit ends September 4. Tickets are $15-$21 and entry is on a timed-ticket basis. Afterward, get a kit to have your kids construct one of Da Vinci’s inventions. If you want your budding geniuses to take the Da Vinci experience further, go to www.therobotstore.com and order easy to build robot kits to help stir the juices of electronics in your kids. Please remember, building robots is not just for boys. It is all right to help your children build these robots the first time. Deconstruct the kits and have them rebuild the robots without your help or switch robot projects with their siblings.
After six weeks of drawing classes, tours through three museums, and three hands-on-projects, your children would have learned more than art. Through drawing classes, geometry is learned by using right angles, arcs, lines, and circles to draw the human figure. Designing on paper then constructing a miniature home enhances drawing, visual, and three dimensional skills. Visiting the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit is studying history. Building robots requires the skills of reading comprehension, mathematics, and technology. By enrolling your children in drawing classes and expanding on that one art form you will reinforce four basics of education; reading, math, technology, and history. Now that is an extracurricular tutor.
