What if nurturing your child's creativity could unlock a world of endless possibilities? Join us as we sit down with Faigie Kobre, a distinguished educator and artist, to explore the transformative power of art in early childhood education and homeschooling. From her teaching roots at Bank Street College to her unexpected pivot into high-end portrait photography, Faigie's journey is both inspiring and enlightening. We delve into her creation of the Preschool Art Seminar in a Box, her engaging workshops, and her popular website dedicated to children's art. Discover how she now focuses on adult creativity, mixed media art, and her latest venture—an online professional development platform for preschools.
In this enriching conversation, we highlight the critical importance of allowing children to progress through their developmental stages naturally through art. Faigie shares heartwarming stories, like a young boy from Egypt who flourished when given the freedom to explore his artistic abilities, and practical advice for setting up creative spaces at home. Whether you are a homeschooling parent or an educator, you’ll gain valuable insights on incorporating open-ended art activities that foster creativity and problem-solving skills in children. Don’t miss the array of resources and courses recommended by Faigie, including her own site eduart4kids.com, to support your homeschooling journey and beyond.
https://eduart4kids.com/
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What if nurturing your child's creativity could unlock a world of endless possibilities? Join us as we sit down with Faigie Kobre, a distinguished educator and artist, to explore the transformative power of art in early childhood education and homeschooling. From her teaching roots at Bank Street College to her unexpected pivot into high-end portrait photography, Faigie's journey is both inspiring and enlightening. We delve into her creation of the Preschool Art Seminar in a Box, her engaging workshops, and her popular website dedicated to children's art. Discover how she now focuses on adult creativity, mixed media art, and her latest venture—an online professional development platform for preschools.
In this enriching conversation, we highlight the critical importance of allowing children to progress through their developmental stages naturally through art. Faigie shares heartwarming stories, like a young boy from Egypt who flourished when given the freedom to explore his artistic abilities, and practical advice for setting up creative spaces at home. Whether you are a homeschooling parent or an educator, you’ll gain valuable insights on incorporating open-ended art activities that foster creativity and problem-solving skills in children. Don’t miss the array of resources and courses recommended by Faigie, including her own site eduart4kids.com, to support your homeschooling journey and beyond.
https://eduart4kids.com/
Instagram: TheHomeschoolHowToPodcast
Facebook: The Homeschool How To Podcast
Welcome to the Homeschool How-To Find my Curriculum, a series where we talk all about curriculum. I've been interviewing homeschooling families for over a year now on my main podcast, the Homeschool How-To, but I really wanted to zero in on curriculum. There's so much out there. How do I know what would work best for me and my child? How do I know what works for one child would work for the other? I might like the curriculum I'm using now, but how do I know there's not a better one out there, especially if I don't know all the curriculums? And what about supplemental curriculum? Should I be using that too? This series is to help you decide just that. I'm going to interview parents who are using all the curriculums so that you can decide the absolute best way to unfold your homeschooling journey. The absolute best way to unfold your homeschooling journey. Welcome. And with us today we have Faji Cobra. Actually, did I pronounce that correctly? Fagi Cobre? Fagi Cobre, what an interesting name. What is the nationality behind that? It's Jewish. Interesting. Is it a common? It can't be common, is it?
Speaker 2:It is In my, in my community. It's a very common name oh wow, oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:So Faggy, faggy, cobree. Okay, so, faggy, I had originally received an email from you and I guess let's just start by what made. What made you reach out to the podcast?
Speaker 2:So, um, I have, uh, I've had a like a very long history of of stuff that I've done. I'll I'll start from the beginning. Um, so I started out as a teacher. I loved the art, the creative art part of it. I went to a school called Bank Street College of Education, which is in New York City. It's a very progressive, educational, very amazing school. As a matter of fact, they have, aside from their graduate school, they also have a school where you kind of it's like a lab. Whatever you learn, you could see what's going on. It's really an amazing place. And I was doing that for a while. And then I got married and I started having children. I have six of them and they're actually all married now.
Speaker 2:And, um, while I was raising them, I I did various things. I was a photographer, I was a high-end portrait photographer year for many years because I wanted to be home and um. And then I also got into this information marketing and they say if you want to create something in information marketing, do something that you know. And what did I know? I knew a preschool education and I knew art in the preschool education. So I created this product called the Preschool Art Seminar in a Box and I sent it out and somebody local-ish bought it and really liked it and she asked me if I, if I did workshops and I hadn't. But I said, you know, I thought for a minute and I said, yeah, I do workshops. And I put together together a workshop and it was like how to do, um, creative art, like developmentally appropriate art, instead of cookie cutter, copycat kinds of crafts, and then I started doing that I would. I was sending out like it was more local schools, more private schools. I was doing um, workshops, uh, at the same time.
Speaker 2:And um, and then, um, at one point I I started a website. I started a website. I started a website for my children's art and I took a course on how to market it. And the guy said to me how can you do a website for children's art if you're not doing any children's arts? I started dragging in neighbor's kids and giving them art and photographing and posting on it.
Speaker 2:And and then I have a friend that started was starting a school. Uh, she was starting, she was becoming a principal of a local private school. It was like just in the beginning years and I was speaking to her one night, we had gone to graduate school together and I said to her you know what? I think I'm going to be your art teacher next year because I needed content for my blog. So actually I'm in my 11th year um of that and so I.
Speaker 2:So I was doing that and then I I took I'm one of these people that has taken like a lot of courses, and I was taking another course on how to market my blog and I was speaking to this wonderful woman who was my coach and I was explaining that the reason so many adults feel like they can't draw a straight line and are so uncreative is a lot of it is. You can trace back to your early years in your art world and she said would you consider starting a blog for adults on creativity to show them what they um, what, what, where they went wrong? So I said, okay, I'm up for the challenge and I started doing research and I kept coming across this term mixed media or you ever heard of that mixed media?
Speaker 1:uh, maybe once or twice, but I don't know what it is okay.
Speaker 2:So it's, it's. It's not the kind of art where you have to like learn how to draw. It's like a mixture of collage and stamping and and stenciling and it's just fun, fun stuff. And I got really, really into that for a number of years and I started, I developed online classes and I was doing in-person classes and anyway, last year I met with a woman. She became a coach of mine and she talked me into going back to my old expertise. She said why are you trying to put yourself out there as an artist? I was really calling myself the non-artist when you have so much expertise in education and art. So I ended up taking my professional development that I had been giving and I put it online and you know, it's fairly new. It's fairly new, so I have.
Speaker 2:So I, you know I've been trying to market this for preschools and then recently I said to myself you know, I've always, I always wished I was homeschooled. I always wished I could have homeschooled. It was. It was not something that you know, you really need to be a special kind of a person. I just don't know if I could have done it, because it's almost like you don't get a break, but I just love everything I read and hear about homeschooling and one of the best things about homeschooling with art is that there's a continuum. You can start with something. It's probably like that in all of the curriculum that you do right, you start with something and you're not worried that another teacher is going to come and mess it up and not going to continue. You can do things like in step-by-step fashion Now we're learning this this year and now we're going to do this this year, or, if it doesn't work out, we'll switch to something else. And I said you know what this is really would be amazing for homeschoolers also. So what I did recently and I'm still in the middle of doing it because part of my program so I have this program, which is I'm mainly marketing it towards administrators, and then I have like a cheaper program where, if somebody wants to, just they don't need anything customized I started adding I'm in the middle of adding a course on curriculum and education, so it's what it is is. It's like I first like and this is something that parents have to learn also.
Speaker 2:It's not just educators that don't understand this. They don't understand the benefits and the importance of art and what art can do for their children. So I go through in this program, I go through explaining what's wrong with the cookie cutter, copycat crafts and why, why it's so important the other crafts, and then I explain how to incorporate that and then I, you know, I also show people there are people, they, they must do their holiday crafts, they must do the seasons, they can't just do regular art. So I show them how to do it in developmentally appropriate ways.
Speaker 2:And it's just for a homeschooler. It is such an amazing thing because there's so many things you can do that in school you'll never get to do. So you could maybe do something for a holiday. But I have like one course where just be talking about sewing and clay and not everybody has a good art education education program in school. So there's so many amazing things that homeschoolers can do with their kids with this. So I just started checking out, you know, homeschool podcasts, and here we are, and here we are.
Speaker 1:Yes. So so many things as you were talking came to mind, one being that, yes, as you're learning art in the classroom, if a child is really enjoying something, it's like when that bell rings at 40 minutes or you know they have to reboot where, yeah, like you were saying in the homeschool community, they can continue to, to work on that. You can work on it all day or all week or all month. And part of like the premise for this podcast was I don't know how to homeschool, so I interview the people that do and so like kind of even, should I homeschool my kids? I don't know if that's what I want to do or not. And I did choose to homeschool my five-year-old this year. It's his kindergarten year.
Speaker 1:But part of the hesitation in the beginning was well, homeschool sounds like you need to be really crafty and I'm just not a crafty person, so I don't know if I can do it.
Speaker 1:But as we went through the year I was like, oh well, maybe I could be a crafty person. It was just never really laid out in front of me to determine whether I am or not, because when you have a classroom of 30 kids and yada, yada, and my mother was not a crafty person, so but now that I'm kind of getting into it with my son, I realized that there's a lot more to it. And the last thing I was going to touch upon is I never really understood it, like why is art important? And I think, for the person that the lay person that doesn't know much about it you just think of, like drawing and coloring, and you know for me, like why do I need that?
Speaker 1:Okay, but as I was interviewing homeschooling people throughout the last year and a half, someone mentioned I think it was Nicola from she was from Scotland and she said for a child to take a project and start it from beginning to end and be creative and actually develop something and create something that they put into this world means so much to them and their psyche and their confidence. But that is why art is important. And I was like, wow, I never thought about it like that.
Speaker 2:OK, that's one reason, but what? One of the things that I teach, which is very important, is to be able to give kids things that are really developmentally appropriate for their age, and one of the reasons I'm so against standard traditional crafts is because it doesn't fit to where they are. We're very accepting of the fact that kids can't talk before they babble, they can't walk before they crawl, but we expect them to be able to create things in art before they are using the materials. So very young children really just need a lot of experimentation, especially two-year-olds, three-year-olds. They're learning the materials. They're up to the scribbling stage and the messing stage. Parents and teachers have a very hard time with this. They want a product, they want people to create something that looks like something which is not what they're up to at that point, and people don't have the patience for it. So I so, aside from the fact that it has to be developed mentally appropriate, there's the sensory, the sensory satisfaction and the sensory enjoyment that kids get from this. There's actually a book out that is for adults, but it's called the creativity cure. Book out that is for adults, but it's called the Creativity Cure, and it's really about how creativity heals and how it heals depression and how it heals anxiety and it is such an important thing for us to give our children to be able to make and to be able to create is something that is a gift that we can give our kids, especially if we're homeschooling. Because, like you said, like I'm an art teacher now I have I have my kids for 50 minutes and the 40 at 45 minutes they have to clean up and it's impossible to get them to stop because they're deep in it. But I have another class coming in and you know, with homeschoolers there are so many things that they can take on this original. You know, in the beginning it's it's sensory and getting the kids involved in mushing and feeling. But then as they mature, I'll give you an example.
Speaker 2:There was a story many years ago when I was teaching. I had a little boy come. He was coming from I think he had come from Egypt actually and he came in. I was teaching five-year-olds and he was a little bit younger. He was very, very bright, he had a very high IQ. But he came in he had never been in school before, so he went over to my easel and he was painting. And he was really painting like the three-year-olds, paint just covering the paper and covering the paper, but before. But because he was already older and brighter, he started going through those older stages much more quickly. And then I started noticing he was taking more thought. As he was painting, he was arranging the paint around the table. A couple of months later he was just painting people and painting scenes, not necessarily like a quote unquote artist, but what this showed me was that he needed to go through those stages when allowed. He needed to go through those stages and, as a result, it was coming out naturally.
Speaker 2:On the other hand, I have one of my grandchildren. He have he's three and he's in a program. He is a wonderful teacher, but she doesn't know anything about this and she's making these very, you know, copycat kind of projects. And I see he has developed an idea of perfection. He wants me to do it for him. He wants somebody to do it for him because he doesn't feel trusted that he can do it on his own.
Speaker 2:Well, we don't allow the children to do what they can do at their stage. They feel that I can't do it, you know, and it goes up through the ages until me I can draw a straight line. You know like, until the kids are up to a point, when they get to a stage and they want to learn more techniques and more skills and they're a little bit older, then you can give it to them. But when you don't allow the kids to do the experimentation and let them be kids, then their creativity goes underground. But another thing about creativity and art and creativity is what it does cognitively for the children. It's a problem-solving activity. I tell my students all the time art is about problem-solving. How am I going to solve this problem? Where will I put this?
Speaker 2:You give three-year-olds a bunch of collage materials. You give four-year-olds and five-year-olds and six-year-olds. You give three-year-olds a bunch of collage materials. You give four-year-olds and five-year-olds and six-year-olds. You will see a whole spectrum of results. The three-year-old will just be slapping pieces right on top of the other one. Then, a little bit older, they're arranging. A little bit older, they start making representational things out of their pictures. And if we don't allow them this, then we're robbing them. We're robbing them of such an amazing thing that they can have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's very easy in the homeschool community to forget that. Oh, we need to add some type of art because you're so worried about. Are they reading? Are they you know, are they doing the appropriate level of math and you know on par with that stuff? But this is more important at these young ages. So what would you suggest? I have a five-year-old and a 19-month-old, but for the five and a half-year-old, what should I be doing for him, and how often and like what supplies would we be using?
Speaker 2:You know it's funny because there are so many. There were really so many. So many things. Like, as part of my program I have, I have different courses. I have, like it's it's called an art activities hub, so it comes with eBooks and it comes with um. An art activities hub, so it comes with eBooks and it comes with um many, many videos, but there's uh, so they have things that are longer term things clay and sewing and paper sculpture and you know.
Speaker 2:But what's one of the most important thing is is really painting, really painting? Um, I actually have. I have a website. You know you don't necessarily have to buy my you know costly program unless you want to get very into it. I have a website. It's edur, edur4kidscom. I have a lot, of, lot of activities on there and painting is very, very important. I mean painting, collage, there are so many things, but painting is really very, very important.
Speaker 2:So, like, I know there are parents that don't don't like the mess, but it's not, it's very, it's very containable. You know, you could put a plastic tablecloth on top of your table. You can give them a brush. I only use, like um, I only use the three primary colors in black and white, and then they mix the colors either on a separate plate or on a on a piece of aluminum foil with a cup of water.
Speaker 2:And if you, if you had to only give one kind of art, I would say let those kids paint. If you don't want to do that, get an easel. Get an easel. Let them put one brush in each. That is a very big gift. Painting Cause that's something that people don't want to do because of the mess, and this there's something. Even when we even I also give classes for adults, and even when they're painting, they're always saying this is so therapeutic. I love the feel of the paint on the paper. Painting either, get him an easel, that's a little bit less messy because you don't have to start taking things off the table and covering them up. But painting is really very, very important for the kids. You can do collages. There's a lot of different collages also.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, for things like holidays, of course we've done different arts for that, but it really should be something done more often and you know myself, this happens a lot, so I'm sure a lot of other parents can attest to this. But when you have stuff to do, like you want to get meals prepped or the house vacuumed or whatever, it is so easy to say, okay, you can go on your iPad, but how much nicer would it be to just like contain a room and okay, this is where you can have, you know, these paints or this drawing and kind of like, give it, would you give a task? Or sometimes give a task like, hey, could you draw me the dog or you know animal?
Speaker 2:No, so not until they've been doing it a lot and you have to really get a sense from them. So sometimes I'll give very broad um, uh challenges. So let's say there's a kid. I don't know what to make. So I'll say well, can you think of something that you did recently that you really liked a lot? Why don't you paint that? Or why don't you use only three colors? You wouldn't believe what kids can do when you just let them go. But if actually you actually have to go and make dinner and vacuum the house, that's why you actually have to go and make dinner and vacuum the house. That's why it's not that much oversight to have an easel.
Speaker 2:As a homeschooler I would strongly suggest in the corner of a room you can get this noose printer. They can paint on anything. You can cut up a paper bag and let them cut. You don't even have to keep it. It depends how old they are. You don't want to keep things. You can take pictures of everything and keep that in a binder. But if you just set them up with an easel, with you know the colors and the brushes and they, they'll, they'll really like that, they really will enjoy that and you know it's uh, not as messy. It's the ipad definitely not as messy, but the gift you're giving them with giving them just just the paint is a lot more than you'll get from the iPad use.
Speaker 1:And what are some other crafts that you've done with the kids or that you would recommend at that age?
Speaker 2:So it's not a matter of it's, it's not a matter of crafts, it's, it's a matter of using the materials. So I will go to the store and let them, let them experiment with the materials. This is paint. Then we have I know I recently had picked up, I was in, I was in Walmart actually there was these delicious creamy crayons that when you color with them it's like coloring with lipstick. Um, there are all different markers and all different techniques that they need to. Just, you know, you could also just give them, make a box and put in staplers and scissors and ribbon and and just let them create, let them.
Speaker 2:People have to get away from the fact that the art is just all about making a craft, a specific craft. Let them paint, let them paste, let them, and then if people don't know what to say, cause it looks like a mess and they're going to can't say it's beautiful. So you look at what the object, you say, oh look, I see what you did. You put this red piece on top of this yellow piece and you made three lines over the hair and here you intersected another one. But it's the biggest gift that you can give children now if you want a really robust, a real robust art program, then you know, if you, if you go to my, I actually have a free report on my site, which is eduart4kids, with the number.
Speaker 2:It's called Ditching Copycat Crafts and there's a couple of videos that come with it with, you know, free videos of anybody is interested in getting into it. You could look at my website, you know. So it's, it's it could be little things or it could be really getting into it and really, you know, having the children when they're, you know, kids that get really into it, they're not going to necessarily want to go to the iPad because they're they're working on their sculpture or they're working on some long-term project. You know that they love to do and it is. It's just such an amazing thing for kids to be able to get into this.
Speaker 1:And how would it work for the 19 month old? I mean, uh, what?
Speaker 2:So the 19 month old? Is you really just going to have to give um big sheets of paper, crayons or markers and just be there while they just move their hands? Move their hands. If you want to do painting with them, I would use shelving paper, like the large shelving paper, like I have these little tables down in my basement because we run camps here, and I'll cover it with there. Then I'll take little things of paint that I've gotten from Walmart and I'll just put a little paint on and they take it. And they of paint, like I, that I've gotten from Walmart and I'll just put a little paint on and they take it and they just uh, move it like that. I mean, the main thing you're trying to teach them at, that is, is not to color on walls, you know, and they're just learning. They're learning what these things do. I mean.
Speaker 2:I remember being in a. In a it was actually one of my children's. She was in a nursery program and it was a very good teacher there and I was. It was an orientation. I was watching from the side. There was one table that had some pieces of paper for collage and there was some paste there and the kid went, sat down and she took a circle and she pasted it down and there was some paste there and the kid went sat down and she took a circle and she pasted it down and she was done. And the teacher walked over to her and she picked up the paper and she turned it over and she said look it sticks. She understood where that child was at, that that child was learning that paste sticks paper to another paper.
Speaker 2:She wasn't trying to get her to make anything, and especially with a 19-month-old, and it takes a long time. People get frustrated because you want your kids already to be doing things, to be making things Until they're three years old. They're not really. You're just going to give her or him the materials, give some painting, give some coloring. The five-year-old is capable of a lot more, though. You know you could cut up a bunch of circles. What can you do with that? Um, add some squares, um, there were so many, there were so many different um collages to do, to do just with shapes and um. You know, look on my site and you could. You'll just see so many, so many examples of ideas of what to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's very into the hot glue gun, I assume, because it's more like a tool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you just have to be careful. They have to learn how to use it. If he wants to use a hot glue gun, then get. Start collecting little pieces of wood, um, cardboard. We do in my class we have cardboard construction. We we cut up pieces of you know boxes. They make things out of it. Um, um, you know, spools are like, just I'm, I'm a jump collector. I collect things and I bring into my and, and you could do the same thing in your um, in your house. You just collect things that you're throwing out, that they might they'll make all kinds of sculptures that don't necessarily mean anything. That don't this is. They're not necessarily anything, but it's just so much fun and they just enjoying it so much. And as long as he's careful, you can, he can wear a glove on the other hand. Um, he's a righty, he would wear one on his left hand, then he won't burn himself. But even if they burn themselves, you'd run to the sink. It's not, they're not very bad burns. They love the hot glue gun.
Speaker 1:He loves it um, and we had let's see, for Christmas I had gotten him thinking, oh, let's get him into drawing a little booklet on. It was like teaching kids how to draw things. He didn't really like that part but I did. So we had like a whole two, three week thing where I was doing the drawings and he was coloring them as soon as I was, you know, getting done. So that was really cool because it was just us two together at the table and, oh, mom, okay, are you done with that yet? Because I'm done coloring this one, now I'm on the next one, and so little things like that are really fun.
Speaker 1:We just kind of wrap our head around. I know it can be a lot sometimes for the homeschooler, because and that's why I started this podcast is to kind of see all the ways people are doing it, because there's no one right way, no one way that works for everyone. But you know, what do we need to include? And it is so important to include art in in what they're doing. And I, yeah, I think back to my art school days and you know I did really like it. I would, I would draw at home all the time, but so quickly it does get squashed because they just think other classes are more important, and who knows what it could have led to. I like I'm writing a children's book right now, so I'm paying an illustrator to do it, and I'm like man, if I just knew how to do this myself.
Speaker 2:Well, not necessarily, because it's really. It's not just about how, knowing how to draw, it's about the release of the tension and just the making and just the creating. And there's a whole movement out there, people to do just process art, Just do it for the process, not for the product, just for the process. And it's very important up until a certain age. It's just that our society is so product-oriented that it's very hard for people to just realize how important it is to create just for the sake of creating. And you know you'll, you know you'll, you'll just see, try, you know, try, painting with him and just allowing him to paint what he wants, how he wants, and you'll just see the benefits.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to go on and get a. Get a an easel and maybe some smocks too.
Speaker 2:For sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure Smocks.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so cool. So, um, your course, do you want to tell us a little bit about what that? I know you kind of already did touch on it, Okay.
Speaker 2:So it's really okay. So it's what I. I have a free course, I have a free mini course. You could get it at eduartforkidscom and that's a number four, and it just really shows you how to, what's wrong with edu, with copycat crafts, and how to how to move on. I do have something a little bit. You know, somebody has to be really, really interested in bringing art into you know, in a big way, not just some crafts, it's called Beyond Copycat Crafts and that's something somebody can make a decision once they get into it and they see if it's something that they really like enough and it's something that really resonates with them. But to start, you can just, you know, just get my free mini course, you know, hang out on the blog, see what you know free activities you can find there, and I think it'll be really eyeopening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it definitely will be, because just this conversation has been and you know, my mind is turning on all the things I should be doing, but well, we can't look at it as should be what we can do from here forward. Right, it's never too late, right, right, all right, great. So I will put the link, uh, in the show's description, where people can find you, and are you on any other sort of social media or anything?
Speaker 2:Um, I am, but I'm not like. I'm on Instagram but I'm same thing. Add eduart for kids. I don't really post much also on Facebook. I haven't really been um well, that's a.
Speaker 1:That's a whole world of its own right, A different way to do art, Right? No, where I'm like Instagram and all that jazz.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what I'm talking about. There are people that post what they're doing with kids on Instagram. There are so many. There's homeschoolers on Instagram, there's, you know, early childhood educators. That's a whole, you know a whole world onto itself. But mostly my website. I guess my website, eduartforkidscom and I guess you can get me if you're on Instagram on Instagram is at eduartforkids E-D-U-R-A-R-T-F-O-R-K-I-D-Scom. Those are the main places you can find me Great.
Speaker 1:Well, Peggy, thank you so much for joining us today and talking about this with us. I know I will be changing a little bit up of what I do on the day to day and make it a little bit more messy, but fun, Right, Thank you so much. Okay, great, Thanks for joining us. Your son will thank me Absolutely. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for listening. Please consider sharing this podcast or my main podcast, the Homeschool how To with friends, family on Instagram or in your favorite homeschool group Facebook page. The more this podcast how To with friends, family on Instagram or in your favorite homeschool group Facebook page, the more this podcast is shared, the longer we can keep it going and the more hope we have for the future. Thank you for your love of the next generation.