Sunday, May 3, 2015

Article for SA Scout- Mawson Lakes Zulu Pack’s Art Day Out



Today, Mawson Lakes Cub Pack went into the SA Art Gallery to work on their Art and Design badges. This was done to take in the month’s activities through the Art Gallery’s START program.

Some of you may be asking what the START program is.

On the first Sunday of the month, the Art Gallery of South Australia runs free activities for children aged 5 to 10 years of age. It is called the START program and offers an introduction to visual art for children (and their families).

The START program is free and includes art activities, tours, live performance and entertainment. Each month, the theme changes to suit current exhibitions within the Art Gallery. START is recommended for children aged 5-10 years and adult supervision is required.

What this means for Mawson Lakes Cubs, is it becomes a relatively inexpensive day out. Simply for the cost of the train fare into town, and the Cubs bringing their own packed lunches, we have a great day out and get some badge work done.

The theme of the START program for May was "Every Picture Tells a Story" and some of the activities that we did included:

Children’s Tours: Where we took a guided tour of the Trent Parke: The Black Rose exhibition and learnt how he created a forest from his dreams.

Cloud Creations: Where the Cubs had a chance to traced the pictures they saw  in the clouds in a layered drawing and finish in a frame.

Every Picture Tells a Story: The Cubs explored the possibilities of making your own visual story by recording a memory or dream playing with a variety of images

GooRoo Animation Screening: Saw the awesome animation films created by school holiday workshop participants at the Art Gallery.

Mr Oopy Children’s show: We also enjoyed the energy interactive performance by the children’s entertainer extraordinaire Mr Oopy.

The theme of this particular START program saw at least 2 of the cubs get enthused about photography as both an art form and as a hobby. Trent Parke’s work is certainly very interesting and was definitely a great way for the cubs to view how something that can be viewed as an everyday activity can be both an art form and a method of storytelling. That we were able to get the trip to count towards different parts of the Art and Design badge at the same time was also a bonus.

Attending a START day at the Art gallery has become a un planned bi-annual event for Mawson Lakes Cub Pack. The themes for the days are generally listed 3 months in advance on the Art Gallery website (although they are ALWAYS on the 1st Sunday of the month). But they are certainly a great way to get Cubs (and Joeys) out and about, doing something they may not necessarily do.

CSL – Zulu Pack
Mawson Lakes Scout Group



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