Parents kept busy at kids' art school
[attach]5128[/attach]While Nikki Goldman Stroh taught art classes to children over the last decade she constantly noticed a slew of parents on their cellphones waiting for the sessions to finish.
This inspired one of the main concepts behind Seasons Family Centre. The newly opened Davenport Road and Bathurst Street art school runs several classes at the same time, to entertain parents while their kids take part in another activity.
“The idea behind Seasons is to enrich your lifestyle through creative means so that the whole family can do that simultaneously,” says Goldman Stroh.
Goldman Stroh, who studied photography, psychology and art therapy, initially came up with the idea for Seasons because she thought it would be more efficient than continuing to teach all over the city.
Her friend and co-founder Kim Davies, a registered early childhood educator and elementary school teacher, helped plan the business for over a year and a half before its September opening.
“We have a lot of complementary skills so between the two of us when we worked together we’d see the magic that would happen,” Davies says. “When we brought our philosophies together about how children learn through play, nature versus nurture, all those ideas we thought ‘wow if the two of us got together and started our own business, we could make some magic.’ ”
The centre has a variety of classes including photography, jewellery making, yoga, baking, cooking, dance and drama for everyone from infants to adults. Although they cater to families, anyone is welcome to take a course.
“We also have a special class for teenagers called college prep, which is where we do how to cook, how to get yourself ready for university, managing a kitchen, budgeting, cleaning your house, laundry, all kinds of things you need to know for getting ready to prepare to leave home,” Davies says, adding they also run camps and workshops and host birthday parties.
They believe creativity isn’t necessarily something people are born with and that it has many benefits like improving self-esteem.
“Creativity comes in many various forms and it doesn’t have to be about painting, it can be in the kitchen,” Goldman Stroh says. “We’re trying really hard to show that to people to bring out their creativity and that they shouldn’t be scared and believe that you’re either born with it or you’re not.
“Our focus is a lot more about the process than the final product in all of our courses.”
She says they decided on their location because they immediately loved the building and felt the Annex was missing anything like it.
“We want families to feel very comfortable and safe here and to have fun and explore their expressive art and to explore themselves and to want to create,” Davies says.