Greetings from the Bay Area! I am on vacation with three of my grown up kids and four of my grandkids.
Coming prepared was important because my twelve year old grandson wanted to finish his star wars quilt. We started this art quilt in Idaho and now we are on a mission to finish it during my visit. Also one of my six year old grandsons let me know that he was old enough to paint something too. So I packed up my paint supplies in my suit case for our projects. This class also has an afterschool student who is 10 years old. Our first order of business was to go over the many rules about painting fabric without dropping your paint filled brush on the carpet and keeping the iron safely away from your elbows. Each child was allowed to draw their own designs and then paint the project. 
I find this to be the best approach because they are working on something that really interests them. Kids this age love to draw and paint and their imaginations are wonderful. How they look at their world is so incredible and helps me to remember to trust my original designs when creating a new art quilt project.
The other thing is each one of them knows what they want to outcome to be. For instance my older grandson has a particular idea about how the sky should be for his star wars quilt. This uses a lot of dark colors which kind of swirls together. After much experimenting we decided it was better to use a sea sponge instead of a paint brush and wipe across the fabric instead of dabbing with the brush.
Teaching the six year old to paint water on his fabric and then color in with watercolor pencils turned out to be a great approach and he was able to control the color more. We worked on their art projects afterschool for three days and had a wonderful time. When I go home next week I will take their painted blocks and make them into two pillows and of course the long awaited star wars quilt. More on that on a later date. What are some of the ways that you spend creative time teaching art to kids? Karen
