Monday, February 6, 2012

Art Camp

If you have been trying to be a faithful follower of this blog, I am truly sorry. It has been months since I have posted. Hopefully I can post some more blogs to catch you up on what I have been doing since August (I know, its pitiful). But instead of trying to play catch up let me fill you in on what I have going on right now, this week. Its an initiative I have taken on my own, but one that I think is important. It is summer right now in Paraguay and the long hot summer days were starting to wear on me. Oh the boredome of trying to stay cool. And I watched as children mostly watched television and tried to keep themselves occupied as well. Something I have wanted to do since I arrived was art with kids. Well this idea started to take shape as I sat in my shade sipping Terere. A week long art camp for kids!
So after a few days of planning, asking the local libreria to donate art supplies, and inviting kids from two communities I was ready to go. This morning was the first day and I am off to a good role. The Peace Corps office had an art camp curriculum that I am following and it really gets at the goals that I am trying to accomplish. In the schools kids have art classes, but creativity is rarely emphasized, or it is creativity within a rigid set of requirements. What I want to do during art camp is help kids think outside of the box and use their creativity. The curriculum uses mediums of song and story to help lead into appropriate art activities. For example: today we sang "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" or La Arana Chiquitita and then the kids made masks of the different things included in the song: the spider, the tree(water spout), the rain, and the sun. Later I read a story about homes and then the kids drew pictures of their homes. Tomorrow we will spend time working on drawing self portraits and parts of the body by singing "Head, Shoulders, knees, and toes" and reading "Where the wild things are." I am having a lot of fun helping these kids tap into their creative sides!