Back to the future

Today, more than ever, it is becoming critically important to balance children’s online time with real-time interactivity. Of course, devices do have educational and gaming apps which can help to improve knowledge and cognitive abilities. But excessive, passive reception of movies and short-form videos can become detrimental to the formative years of a child’s emotional and cerebral development.

Reading requires a child’s mindfulness. Group activities like music and movement will promote co-ordination and teamwork. Exploring of colours, textures, shapes and making original craftwork provides its own critical growth in a child’s developmental world.

Drawing and Colouring

 With Bantex @School Wax Crayons, Jumbo Colour Pencils and Oil Pastels, Water Soluble Pencils and Brush, all the tools of colouring are at the disposal of a child’s limitless imagination.

How many adults declare outright that they simply cannot draw? Very often, this may have mostly to do with an earlier, childhood insecurity about talent. Everybody draws. Some just draw with more ease and confidence than others.Whether it’s filling in between the lines in a colouring book, or choosing the ‘correct’ colours to represent an imagined scene, the exploration and relation of colour to a child’s world is seminal. Essentially, a child replicates the spectrum of colour as she or he perceives it. The sun is yellow. The grass is green. The sea is blue. And yet only exposure to the art and craft of colour can begin to experiment with the sea being green, the grass being yellow and the sun perhaps suddenly becoming a blue moon.

Painting

It’s a splash of ‘Picasso’, a smudge of ‘Monet’, a daring stroke of ‘Rothko’. At very least, every kid has the potential to squish paint around like a ‘Pollock’. Everything starts with the confidence of a delightful, fun-filled mess.

The depths and effects of mixing colours and experimenting with brushstrokes on different surfaces is a rainbow playground for children. Bantex @School brings every texture and tool to the easel. Kit out a classroom with Watercolour Boxes, a collection of Acrylics and water-based paints.  The finger paints and face paints are just an uproarious laugh.All complemented with a collection of painting accessories. For children, painting is making whatever mark happens to spill off the brush.

Craft

Cutting things out. Sticking stuff together. Moulding a shape. Adding a final touch of glitter. These are the things that have children challenged and animated by what’s in front of them. And what they might create with it.

Bantex @School has boxes and boxes and boxes of Modelling Clay colours. Start with a 12-piece pack and add an 8-piece, and 4-piece box as the forms and shapes grow bigger and bolder. Cutting out shapes and sticking them together needs just a simple application of White Glue. Sticky fingers here we come. And once it’s all assembled, add some sparkle with glitter glue.

Stationery

Ah, the boring stuff. Not so! Pencils, sharpeners and rulers are all part of the toolkit. Jumbo size pencils and crayons are made for the little hands of our little creatives.  The sharpeners are made for these jumbo pencils with containers. No mess, no fuss.

 Bantex @School, @Play, @Learning

Art materials become a thing of wonder in little hands. The sheer tactile experience is a limitless horizon of discovery. Not all children want to be artists. But all children definitely do play. And the more tools and colours they have to play with, the more they learn.

LEARN • PLAY • CREATE

We never stop learning

The teacher of the future will nurture learners, not just feed information. They will guide their students through activities and share in the wonder of discovery. The role of the teacher is shifting from someone who knows stuff, to someone who is learning stuff, like the rest of the class. The difference is, the teacher has extensive experience at learning and that’s the key to guiding young minds through uncertainty or failure, problem-solving, questioning and passionate curiosity. Essentially, teachers are becoming guides in the digital landscape, to equip students with the skills they need to obtain knowledge on their own.

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