Amy Ramirez, a Cook Magnet Elementary School third grader, and Amy Rosado, 4, and not yet in school, were busy making button books for an art project. When they were done, their teacher, Shannon Smith, had an idea.
Smith asked the girls to read their books to each other. Amy Ramirez wrote about learning to play the drums, which she does. Amy Rosado assembled her effort around an assortment of animals, plants and toys.
“Here’s a dinosaur and a tiger,” Amy Rosado said. “There’s a flower, a bee, a squirrel and a bee. This is a balloon and here’s a happy face.”
The two youngsters were participants in the Waukegan Park District’s inaugural Parent & Child Arts Park Saturday at the Jack Benny Center in Waukegan, where adults and youngsters work on projects together.
During the summer, the Park District’s art van makes the rounds of city parks, as well as movie nights and the Waukegan Band concerts, setting up Arts Parks on a regular basis. Smith said different projects are offered giving participants a variety. It is primarily geared for children.
Arts Park in the winter is different. Smith, the Park District’s resident artist, said the goal of the program in its second year is to involve parents and children together in a project. With four more sessions between Feb. 8 and May 17, each one will have a different theme.
“We’re trying to reach a different group,” she said. “We want to make art available for everybody. By doing this, we hope to reach more people. We want everyone to enjoy themselves.”
Diona Brough, Amy Ramirez’s mother, spent more time watching her daughter than helping with the art. She said her daughter is creative, but she wants to be there to offer support if a task is particularly challenging. Just getting out of the house and away from electronics is helpful.
“She gets to be with people in person,” Brough said. “There is real social interaction, rather than only virtually. This is a great way for her to express herself and be with other kids. She’s doing an autobiography.”
With the use of the word autobiography, Amy quickly looked up asking the meaning of the word. As she explained what she was doing, she demonstrated she understood the meaning of illustrating part of her personal story.
“This is about why I decided to play the drums,” she said “I said I wanted to play the drums and my dad said, ‘yes.’ I started playing, and I keep playing.”
Amy Rosado worked on her button book flanked by both her parents — Angelica Galeano and Pedro Rosado. Along with exposing their daughter to the opportunity to express herself creatively, they enjoyed the time together.
“This is a great time for family time,” Galeano said.” She is very happy being with other kids, and it gives us all a chance to be together and work together,
“It’s good to be with your family,” Rosado added. “It’s important for us to do things together.”
Brough said programs like Arts Park give her daughter an opportunity to interact with other youngsters as it did with the two Amys reading their books to each other. She also likes the family aspect of the winter program.
“It’s amazing,” Brough said “It gives us good family time, and you get to be with other people. She gets to be with other kids.”
With all the Parent & Child Arts Park events at 11 a.m. at the Jack Benny Center, the next one will be creating paper heart spinners on Feb. 8, fancy spring hats on March 15, dying Easter Eggs with natural coloring on April 5 and Japanese Sumi-e painting on May 17.
