Finding something to do with her young sons on the weekend is a priority for Yolanda Bueno, so she was thrilled to find out about the Waukegan Park District’s winter Arts Park program, which gets all three of them creating art they get to take home the same day.
One son, Mateo Telez, is a third grader at Glenwood Elementary School in Waukegan, and Benji, 4, is preschool age. Bueno did some searching before finding an activity the three of them could do together out of the house and away from electronic screens.
“I wanted to try something new to do with my boys,” she said. “They get to make something. They’re making something new, and they like it. We’re spending some good time together.”
Bueno, Mateo and Benji were participants in the Park District’s Arts Park series Saturday at the Waukegan History Museum at the Carnegie, taking part in the winter edition geared toward parents and children.
The summer Arts Park program is generally for children, held weekly at different parks as well as at events like summer concerts at the beach and movie nights. Shannon Smith, the Park District’s resident artist, said the winter Arts Park is for parents together with children between the ages of 4 and 10.
It is about creating an art project with a focus on developing participating children’s skills and talents, both artistically and in other ways.
“It’s designed for little kids to develop their dexterity on the design, whether they know it or not,” Smith said. “We want them to enjoy what they’re doing. We want them to learn to express themselves.”
On Saturday, each participant cut out a figure of a bear. Mateo was busy using colored markers to color its face, mainly brown, and the clothes on its body. Benji was coloring the body green. Mateo had an idea why his brother selected green.
“He likes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” he said.
Bringing families to the museum or the Jack Benny Center for the Performing Arts — the winter Arts Park was held there in past years — Smith said it puts them in a safe place to create and express themselves in developing their creativity.
Smith said giving children a marked design for the cutout still leaves them a lot of room to use colors and other design techniques to individualize the project.
“If they’re having trouble, we can adjust it for them,” she said.
Along with spending an hour on an art project, Bueno and her children had something else planned.
“We can go to the museum,” Mateo said. “We’re going to see it.”
Ty Rohrer, the Park District’s manager of cultural arts, said when people attend district programs at the museum, like Arts Park and other events, they also get free admission to the museum, which opened in May and normally has an entrance fee.
Usually, residents going to the museum pay $6, while people living outside Waukegan are charged $10. Rohrer said people who come to the Women’s International Day event, a free program, between 5:30 and 8:30 p.m. on March 5, can peruse all exhibits at no cost.
“It’s an opportunity for free admission that day,” Rohrer said. “Our Black History Month lecture, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day program and the History Detectives (on March 14) are other opportunities.”
Rohrer said a Black History Month lecture this month and the International Holocaust Remembrance Day presentation in January were free to the public, also allowing museum access at no cost.