About Messy Makers Art club
Hi, welcome! Thanks for being curious :)
About Messy Makers Art Club (MMAC): I started this art club as a way to help enrich the afterschool programming at my own children's schools. I've always had a passion for messy, creative, open-ended play, and I wanted to pair that belief with real-world STEAM principles to help showcase how learning - especially math and science - can be fun! Play is our children's most important work, and I hope to honor and celebrate that through each Messy Makers Art Club class.
About me: My name is Tori Leymeister, and I'm the founder and teacher at MMAC. I'm a mom of three - to two boys (10 and 8) and a girl (4) - so I'm right where many of you are with parenting. I am fully background-checked and CPR certified. To help my own parenting journey, I completed Child-Parent-Relationship-Training, which is an evidence-based therapeutic model that teaches caregivers play therapy skills to resolve emotional, behavioral, and attachment issues.
I am also a former teacher, and in college I taught elementary-aged Spanish classes :). I currently help teach in the toddler classrooms at our church, and often volunteer with my local elementary school - so, lots of experience with children besides being a mom.
About the classes
Each class is about 1 hour long. We'll begin with a brief icebreaker game, STEAM-focused story or lesson, and start our projects. Each project will vary in supplies/tools, sensory systems engaged, educational principles covered, and messiness but our goal is to keep kids curious, creating, learning, and HAVING FUN! You'll receive an email summarizing the lesson, including any additional (optional) enrichment to tag on at home.