May Classes
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After School
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May Classes 〰️ After School 〰️
Look at some of our recent classes
Creatures above and below
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Today we met interesting creatures above and below. We looked at ancient drawings of animals with human heads and red a story about dream
Animals and magical creatures. Panther made a bird who flies in the sky, collects fish from the sea and knows every portal in the world. Sal made Siamese narwhals that fly together in a sky where there are many stars but one star is the brightest one. Eloise made two mermaids called Maggie and Regan. Greta made a mermaid, a fox and a wild bird with see-through wings. Mima drew a unicorn, a mermaid, a narwhal and a horse. Maddie made a tie die sunset with a background that has water, her and her friends. Tahllullah made 3 mermaids names Sarah, Alice and mama, and Annalise made two mermaids hugging each other in a background depicting the wall that envelopes the sun and the sky
Collage with books
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We loved working with books today. For the first time I didn’t pick my books for their content but for the color of their pages so we could cut them. The kids understand the value of books and the value of words taken out of context too in order to create something new. There was a recurrence of poetic thinking today and everyone was so inspired by the lines and by the paper pieces that we got to use as paint or as parts of a collage. One boy said to another “it’s really nice when we talk this way, it’s not like hey hey bla bla bla, but we’re actually having a conversation”.
Puppets
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Wednesday class puppets continued today culminating with a little performance based on a class poem. I’ve been obsessed with a poem about mice written by a third grader in the 60’s that inspired the kids to create their own collaborative poem using a similar structure. They performed the poem out loud using their puppets and Greta made a bananas background using markers and twine.
Continue the pattern
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Today I was amazed by the kids response to this exercise. The youngest group of 4 to 7 year olds were able to continue the pattern of one piece of fabric onto the paper. They imagined that I needed to make a dress but my piece of fabric was so small that perhaps they could help me by continuing the pattern. They did this by choosing their fabric among many options, cutting it or asking me to cut it in a particular shape and then gluing it onto the paper. At the beginning the idea of copying the pattern instead of copying an object was strange for some but they slowly understood the idea and we worked on using a system that was right for each individually. This was an exercise of finding the right colors, mixing them and placing them in the right place. Some of them worked extending the pattern from the edge of the fabric into the paper, while others worked by adding different layers of color.
Art Boxes
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Colors and textures. The children were so excited today to see colors that they could both squeeze with their fingers and paint with a brush. These art boxes are made dot by dot, with patience, dedication, and by adding depth through the use of different layers of paper. We used dry clay, tempera, paper, scissors and glue guns.
Whales
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Today we played with a compass and the intersection of colors. It was a challenging exercise for this group who is not used to using this tool but they had fun with the challenge. We used tempera to fill in the intersections and get creative with the colors and patterns. I showed them how to do the flower of life using only a compass and told them to continue on their own composition once they felt it was right. The results are all so different.
Truly Scrumptious
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After catching up today and hearing about each other (after the winter break), we talked about the meaning of the word scrumptious. We played with the concept of feeling so full, delicious and abundant, like flowers or a fizzy water bottle. I loved seeing how they immediately pulled up their sleeves and had big smiles before we started! The children had access to all materials and whatever wasn’t already on the table they could ask me for to support their idea. They squeezed and squirted the acrylic bottles, mixed sticky colors in the trays, played with lace and gold leaf and even fake grass. The goal? Make your work be a result of how scrumptious you feel! I even had a boy say “I have no idea what this is but it’s scrumptious for sure!”
Circles and intersections
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Today we played with a compass and the intersection of colors. It was a challenging exercise for this group who is not used to using this tool but they had fun with the challenge. We used tempera to fill in the intersections and get creative with the colors and patterns. I showed them how to do the flower of life using only a compass and told them to continue on their own composition once they felt it was right. The results are all so different.
When I was little
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With the younger group we red today “When I was little” by #jamieleecurtis and remembered our lives as babies. The children loved to remember being magical, sucking on a pacifier, being in their mommies bellies, wearing diapers, nursing, and being held and treated with kindness. This accordion books were so fun to make. They drew, painted, and once they had an image they brought it for me to write the text
A path of colors
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Down a path of colors and on a walking adventure we went. Of all the colored paths we stuck to one and we followed it until it took us to a tree. Some trees had a door with a treasure inside , other trees had to be climbed on to find out what was waiting for us. There were sweets and animals inside. What do children really like? It is sweetness in all its forms. Even when we add white to our primary colors, we get more texture and more sweetness. They enjoyed naming their pastel acrylic colors: banana yellow, peachy peach and minty green. I find the colors they made very interesting
I don’t like Valentine’s day!
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There’s nothing like asking children how they really feel about things. Today we laugh so hard talking about how icky they feel during Valentine’s Day and all the celebration that is involved and how they wished that they could skip it. Their wish was such that I made them free passes that are valid for life! After a simple meditation exercise we learned about duo tone printing in comic books and designed our own valentines story. We also learned about St. Valentine , a Christian priest who was incarcerated and lastly executed. One of the charges against him was performing marriage ceremonies for Christian soldiers against the Roman emperor’s orders. We also red part of Chaucer’s poem “the Parliament of Fowls” which originated the idea of Valentines in the XIV century but this poem is in very old English and a just a little bit of the modern version was just enough to make the children cringe 🤣♥️ So we got some culture and many laughs
Go with the Shape
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Today we meditated using all our senses one by one. We listened, we smelled, we felt our skin, and then we looked around. This was in preparation to work with many different steps in order to build a sculpture of paint, thread and sticks. First, we painted shapes with watercolor and ink on paper. Then we cut out those shapes, made the same shape on cardboard (with a lot of patience) and glued them together. Once we had all our shapes, we had to decide how to connect them in a pattern that is not recognizable (as a cross, a line, or a square would be.) I think that their shapes are so fun and unpredictable. I told them to keep going to where the shapes were asking to go, instead of having a pre determined idea of what to make.
