Kids Share Workshops
Connecting Kids Worldwide through Writing, Art & Photography
About Kids Share Book Making Workshops
Our Volunteer Team Leaders connect with local Vermont schools, after school programs and community centers to teach our cross-cultural book making workshop, which includes the creation of a Kids Share Global Book at the end of the school year. We then make a positive connection with another country and ask them to participate in our book making workshop.
Volunteers share with the Vermont students another country's culture and geography and why it is important for them to share their world. Children are asked to think about how they want to share their themes and artwork, and how this may fit into a completed Kids Share Book at the end of the school year. Writing, illustrations, photography, classroom Skype meetings, a co-created illustration and maps are all part of our book making workshop. The same workshop is offered in another country and the children are also asked to share their world with Vermont students. Volunteers spend five weeks with each school or organization.
At the end of the school year children are given the opportunity to have their work chosen in the production of a co-created Kids Share Book which includes their thought-filled narratives and classroom contact information to create friendships worldwide!
Kids Share Workshops, Inc. has been selected as the recipient of the 2010 USBBY Bridge to Understanding Award! The award is given to outstanding projects that promotes understandings of other cultures through books and reading. Kids Share Workshops will be accepting this award June 26th in Washington, DC. Thank you USBBY! http://www.usbby.org/
Our first book, Kids Share: Tibetan and Vermont Children's Narratives
We hope this book helps people understand the challenges facing the Tibetan people and inspires Vermont kids to explore the many possibilities of the creative arts. We hope to raise awareness of other cultures throughout the world. Each year culminates in the co-creation of a book with the children. Go to: View & Purchase Kids Share Books to see a sample of this book!
(Please support our Book Making Workshops by donating towards a free Kids Share Book for each child who co-creates with us. You can also donate towards art supplies, writing material, pay for an artist in residence to share their craft and co-created superhero posters!)
Thank you!
Contact us at: KidsShareWorkshops@gmail.com
We are proud of how Kids Share Workshops was created! Our first Kids Share journey began in the fall of 2007 at Capitol Grounds, a well-known coffee shop in the heart of Montpelier, Vermont. After seeing portraits that were being auctioned off for a village library and school; Newton Baker, a native Vermonter, ultra marathon runner, poet and retired school teacher, met the artist Kristina Applegate Lutes and inspired her to combine her interest in culture with her artistic talent and love for kids. Weekly meetings over coffee eventually grew to include some of Newton's friends, including Roger Crowley and Ash Brittenham.
Windy Kelley, Ash’s 5th grade teacher at Union Elementary school, opened her door for Kristina to share her first workshop. This first workshop was about the creation of Ash & Spiderman. The children in Ash’s classroom all helped to create a wonderful portrait! Marvel Comics gave Kristina permission to make posters of the painting and L.Brown & Son’s Printing in Barre contributed 250 posters to help raise money for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy! Over $1,500 was raised! Roger Crowley from Crowley photos contributed his fine photographic talents to record the first two workshops and artwork created in Vermont.
Ash and his classmates, the following year, helped to create Speed Demon, his superhero for the first Kids Share Global Book! Chris Costello's 4th grade class at Thatcher Brook Primary School in Waterbury helped to create Falcon Ranger to assist in the narration of their stories. Kristina and her team leaders successfully connected children living in Bylakuppe, India with the children in Mrs. Kelley’s and Mr. Costello's classes! The resulting full color storybook, Kids Share: Tibetan and Vermont Children's Narrative Book was published and shared with the community. Once this journey began, there was no turning back, and "Kids Share Workshops" was born.
(Pictured above: Children who participated in our first Kids Share Workshop, Inc., at the SOS Children's Village in Bylakuppe, India)