Teaching & Work with Children
About Molly
From her first-ever job working as an asst. ski instructor for children at her local ski hill, Molly has loved working with kids of all ages. A continuous thread throughout her career, Molly has worked with children ages 2 - 19 in the arts as an art instructor, both privately and with AVA Gallery in Lebanon, NH, and in multiple capacities in theater arts. In addition to working with children as a teacher, she has also spent many years working as a sitter and tutor for children. She is still in touch with many of the families she sat as young children, now in their teens and twenties! Most recently, Molly worked with college-aged students at The Juilliard School as the wardrobe crew head and as a tutor and sitter for a student in Brooklyn, NY.
Molly believes, above all, in a positive and encouraging teaching method, tailoring her style to the individual student’s needs, letting their interests and imagination guide the learning while maintaining a high level of professionalism and output. Molly also believes in cross-curricular work, connecting ideas and themes between subjects to stimulate conversation, questioning, and creativity.
Teaching Art with Molly
In 2016 and 2017, Molly had the opportunity to create her own art class for her private students. She used the chance to build a course meant to foster creativity, imagination, and passion for making art. Taking her students wishes, needs, and abilities into consideration, she planned and executed exciting, challenging, innovative, and adaptable hour-long lesson plans that utilized a variety of mediums based around varying techniques and incorporated cross-curricular themes such as historical figures, environmental subjects, and cultural movements into the projects. During her lessons, Molly always focuses on providing guidance while letting the student explore, facilitating reflective discussions, and providing constructive and positive feedback to students while, above all else, having a lot of fun!
Molly’s classes aim to give the students exposure to and the chance to build skill in as many different mediums as possible such as graphite, charcoal, collage, clay, paint, etc, while exploring the use of art across time and space discussing the reason for and meaning in the use of different tools and techniques.
For example, when Molly’s students wanted to learn to draw ballerinas, she incorporated discussion of Degas and impressionism into the lesson, and when clay pots were the order of the day, a discussion of Greek amphoras and pithos preceded the activity.
Working in the Arts with Molly
Molly has worked with children in the arts for many years, including in visual art at The AVA Gallery in Lebanon, NH and in theater arts at The Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington, VT.
In both positions, Molly worked as an assistant instructor helping build and run enriching activities for children’s day camps (ages 3 - 12) around themes such as Greek Mythology and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Molly also worked as an intern on the youth theater productions (ages 11 - 19) including Urinetown (2011) and Zombie Prom (2012) at The Flynn and as the supervisor of CAOS: Community Open Arts Studio for families and children at The AVA Gallery.
Sitting: Adventure, Arts, Tutoring, & Play
Molly has also spent many years working as an individual sitter for children and families (ages 2 - 15) she has met through her work. One of her greatest joys has been staying in touch with her families and watching her charges grow from three-years-old to thirteen-year-olds! Molly has spent many-a-day with her kiddos working on homework/tutoring, sledding, playing music, swimming, canoeing, hiking, reading, drawing/painting, playing all manner of games, and, of course, chauffeuring them from here to there!
