Kids Days 1, 2 and 3

This post will deal with my involvement in the kid's days at Cockatoo Island, organised by the Public Programs and Education department. As i have mentioned previously, the interns (and Sarah and Bekah from the Tour Guide group) came up with the theme of the kids days (escape from prison island!) and the activities associated with it. We came up with the design of the map, the go-to works for kids and ended up culling a few activities, but had 3 really cool kids activities remaining. On the first day, Bekah and I manned the hat-making activity at the top of the island - located with the guard house. These hats were the symbol of the prisoners (the kids), and was the first stop for kids on their map. By the end of the day, we were pretty skilled at the origami activity and could probably have folded hats in our sleep. Working with kids is not something new to me, and it was a nice enough day for the activity to be enjoyable and it was good to see a sizeable crowd on the island.
On the second Saturday, i was at the Glitter station. We allowed kids to use glitter paint to create stencils, with logos significant to the Biennale (which were created by Johnathan Barnbrook). This station was really messy, i had glitter everywhere. Though again, it was worth the fun, most kids were very well behaved. We had alot of waste at the end of the day though. The glitter workshop was in conjunction with the work of NZ artist Reuben Paterson (who had his famous glitter works in a house at the top of the Island).
The third saturday was by far the loveliest day in terms of weather, and i was stationed at the blowpainting station. This was located with one of the most popular works of the Biennale - Cai Guo Qiang's Inopportune Stage One (the exploding cars). Kids absolutely loved both the work and the activity station and my black boots are covered in paint, but it was again a great experience.
The kids days were a success. The activities we implemented were easy to administer, fun and engaging for the visiting children. The three kids days saw massive crowds visit the Biennale.