The Extracurricular Summer Tutor

Summer is practically here and your children will have extreme amounts of extra time to dawdle. However, as the responsible parent that wants their children to have a well-rounded education along with cultural and emotional growth, you will have to become their extracurricular tutor.

What is an extracurricular tutor? A person that helps develop the creative and logical sides of the brain outside of the classroom. Can you as a parent do this? YES! And if you follow the suggestions in these next few paragraphs, this summer could be the most rewarding and influential times to bring out the genius in your children.

Fun classes, tours, and projects are the easiest concept to engage young and mature minds in learning. The best way to develop your children's potential is through the arts. Why the arts? The arts develop the logical side of the brain beyond the normal thinking capacity. The first thing to do is enroll your kids in drawing classes. The Chicago Park District offers classes during the day. Some private schools offer evening courses in drawing classes with a fee from $100 - $150 for six weeks. To make your new job as an extracurricular tutor more fun, you, the parent can participate in this exercise along with your children. It could be a family learning adventure.

After two weeks of art classes, visit the Art Institute of Chicago (ARTIC), 111 South Michigan Avenue, (312) 443-3600, www.artic.edu and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), 220 East Chicago Avenue, (312) 280-2660, www.mcachicago.org. Take your children to both museums in one day. I recommend going to the MCA first because it is more spacious and holds less volume of art than ARTIC. Have your kids look at all the art, pick their favorite, write a one page paper about their selection then sketch it. This is where the drawing classes start to pay off, by taking the students out of the classroom and putting them in the real world environment. It does not matter if your kids cannot sketch like a second-year college art student, encourage them to do their best since there is no grade for the project.