Here are some great pics we got from the last day of camp at Miraloma on Friday!
We had a blast, and hope you did too!
Viewing entries tagged
Los Perales Elementary
Today was the start to our Oakland-based summer camp with the theme "Inside-Out". All week, our seven campers will be exploring who they are on the inside vs. who they are on the outside through creative writing activities and art.
Today, we wrote lyrics, poems or stories about a time when we felt judged for our outside self, or how we appear to be on the outside. Our inspiration was a song by singer-songwriter, India Arie who wrote a song called, "I Am Not My Hair". Here's a link to the lyrics: http://www.lyricstop.com/i/iamnotmyhair-india.arie.html
Here are excerpts from lyrics written by Alistair and Sydney:
Alistair -
"I'm popular, I know it's true. No matter what they tell me, I won't be blue. I have friends, the friendship won't ever end. They always think I'm a geek, a nerd. But I tell you, I'm like a nest full of birds."
Sydney -
"I'm just a girl on a mission, I'm just being myself. You're not going to change my way. I love to sing and dance and you can't do anything about that."
We also began creating our "Suticases of You" using pizza boxes! We started by making collages on the exterior of the boxes with images that reflect our "outside" selves, or our personas.
Here are some examples:
Our Art afternoon started with a paint exploration: mixing , painting, rolling, stamping and scraping paint to make covers for our art sketchbooks. We later added pages, punch-holed them and used a twig and rubberband to attach.
We started our Mask project by going to the backyard where we blew up balloons, attached them to bases and used plaster tape and water to "paper mache" the balloons to create mask bases. Tomorrow I'll cut in half our balloon shapes to make a one half mask base where we'll add details to create our personal "persona" creation and by Wednesday, our masks will be dry enough to paint.
At the end of the day we talked about the writing exercise, "I AM NOT MY HAIR" song that was explored in the morning and drew a crazy hair-do in our sketchbooks.
Here are some excerpts from camp at Lafayette last Friday! The exercise was a "Jumble Dream" that the students created from lists of characters, settings, and conflicts that they came up with as a group. We assigned each idea with a number 1-10 and then they chose 3 numbers which corresponded to a number on each list. This gave them the three pieces to construct a story from.
Ruby:
These wings suddenly appeared on me. I was flying. There was blue sky. The clouds were thin, see through and scratchy.
Suah:
Stemdy liked being on a different planet. It was different from his home back in Mars. Although he missed his family he was very interested in the theatre he was in. He sat in every single seat and finally went on stage. He was trying to practice how he could make friends.
Genie:
One day when I was with my friend Ape, who called me Bananas (my real name was Apples) we found a big hole the size of a coconut. We were so curious that we poked our little heads in a little too much. We fell in. The hole was very deep.
SJ:
He has a green backpack shell. In his shell he has a small bank. He is the richest kid in the whole sea world. But he is the unluckiest turtle in the sea world because bad turtles try to steal his backpack.
Below are pictures of the finished creation books that they started the day before!
Here is some of the work from our incredible students today at Lafayette! The writing samples and books are from the prompt "write a creation myth"!
Andy:
Aliens made the Earth by using their building powers. Their building powers made hills, animals, living things, sun, stars, the whole earth. They made air with their magic breath.
Ruby:
Once there was a knitted tree out of brown and green yarn. It was so small that nobody could really see it. The tree was as big as a grass blade.
SJ:
One day when they were making more monkeys, they made a mistake. Since they were tired, they forgot the tail and the fur. They made five fingers and five toes.
Suah:
Big bombs were dropped from the sky because inside each little bomb there was something in it, like a tree or a mountain, anything. Cuckoo was tired so he dragged his ax behind him, which made the Grand Canyon.
Genie:
Exodi made the plants, oceans, streams, dirt, soil, and everything on Earth right this second, except…humans! And with a clap of his hands, he made the two very first humans on Earth, Brian and Eevee.
Today we discussed the relationship between dreams and creation myths, focusing specifically Aboriginal and Native American cultures. Students watched a video, read explanations of the myths and then discussed them before writing their own myths. While they were very proud of their work, many were reticent to share them on the blog today because a number of them will be reading these pieces at the reading/exhibition tomorrow afternoon. These excerpts were taken directly from the dream journals of three students:
Titus
I was sleeping in my bed in my dream and I don’t really know how this happened, but in my dream, I dreamed that I fell off my bed and that everything started spinning.
I was Leonardo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We were fighting the Triceratons (which are basically Triceratops on tow feet). We were trying to defeat their imaginary leader, Traximus.
Elizabeth
Monday night I dreamt that I called up my friends and the next day me and my six friends rode to Stonestown Galleria for free ice cream. It was Alessandra, Sohila, Riong, Faith, Praise and Michelle. On the way back, we got eaten by a cabbage. Too bad for him, we ate our way out. Next, we were surrounded by carrots. We also ate them up. Next were squashes. They exploded on us then we were gunked with squash juice. We turned around and headed out the other way and everyone slept over at my house. The next morning, I saw a thing that had donkey legs and a tail, an eggplant head, a cabbage body, a carrot neck and olive eyes. Then I woke up.
Calla
I dreamed that I was frozen in a giant cube of Jello and I could not get out. Then my brothers, Jonas and Jasper were going to eat me and the Jello, but the Jello wasn’t locked, so I got out and became a giant.
I dreamed that I was in my house and three giant furry monsters were playing cards.
In the afternoon we talked about Aborigine dreams and looked at examples of their traditional dot art. We sketched ideas and then each student painted a piece depicting a favorite animal:
Isabella did a jellyfish, Madeline did a tiger, Emily painted a dolphin, Calla a spiral/snake, Emil a dragonfly, Elizabeth did a polar bear, Emogene painted a turtle, Eli a panther, Titus did a lizard and other animal, and Junior painted an entwined snake and lizard. The results are awesome!
Here are some of the beautiful writing samples from camp yesterdays morning!
Eli
(Pencil Dream. Personification Exercise.)
If a pencil had a dream it would probably be of drawing because that is what they do best. If I were a pencil I would have a dream about being a pencil and being a pencil is quite easy because you just stand there and do nothing at all, but, if someone picks you up you will start drawing and you will draw a picture of a plane or a car or a grinder and lots of things. If a pencil has a nightmare, it would probably dream of getting its tip broken or not being able to draw.
Choochie
(Excerpt from exercise in which the students attempted to write stories that bore no resemblance to reality.)
There I was, lying in my bed, thinking about how normal my life was as Catherine Davis. I wanted something different to happen. I got out of bed to take a shower and go to school. As I looked in the mirror, it turned red and orange and spun and sucked me into a different dimension where I was a fairy and giants were going through the portal. I tried to stop them but they pushed me. A big man fairy told me to go with him and he brought me to a little tree that was hollow.
Titus
(Pencil Dream. Personification Exercise.)
1. If a pencil had a dream it would probably be about dreaming of how many times t got sharpened in one day or being back at the store. Maybe being a pen.
2. The pencil dreamed about being back at the store in a box with all of his pencil friends. He broke out and tried to leave but a little kid found him and left the store with him in his pocket.
Elizabeth
(Spaghetti Nightmare. Personification exercise.)
I’m spaghetti and I have nightmares. Nightmares that are strong. I’m put in a pot with boiling water, wishing I had a flight gear, a flight gear to fly out of the pot. I’m afraid that it will kill me by cooking, cooking in a pot that’s nice and hot. But once I’m taken out of the package, I want to scream and yell, for I know I’m going to be boiled, boiled on a flaming hot grill.
Calla
(The Glasses Dream. Personification)
One night I dreamed that my owner was going to run in a race. At the race, he started to run and at the middle, I fell off and he stepped on me and I went flying to the middle of the ocean. A shark ate me. Inside the shark’s belly, it was slimy. Then I found another pair of glasses that pointed its wand at me and said, “Reparo.” I was repaired! Then me and the other pair of glasses swam out of the shark’s belly.
Madeline
(Pencil Dream. Personification)
My widdle wondwing pencil
Patted on his toes
Then he gave a sniffle all the
Way through his nose
Then he wrote
(I’m very glad) and this is how it goes:
Last night I tried to sleep
I even counted sheep
I also ate some meat
But I knew I couldn’t sleep.
I wondered why and started to sigh
I’ll just clean my seam, then I thought, I know
I MUST DREAM!
I sat in my case and
Began to change
My Hobbit inside of a globbit
And I knew I just had a dream!
Now it may seem
That I am starting to gleem because
Now I’ve had a dream.
Anonymous
(My dream)
I was flying over the ocean. The moon shone over the ocean. The stars twinkled lazily. I dived down, down, through the clouds in the starry sky and glided, arms outstretched, into the ocean. Silence… deep, utter, thorough silence… I saw the stars in the sky blinking, the moon smiling… as I drifted down they faded, went out. Darkness. Darkness surrounding me as I drifted down, down…into nothingness.
Later, we finished our surreal paintings and added "something" behind the door- you'll find out what on Friday!
We talked about how our thoughts and activities are often recycled in our dreams and using recycled materials each student created a sculpture of a character, animal or imaginary creation. Students used glue, tape, glue guns etc. and many chose to paint all or part of their sculpture.
Afterwards each student sketched their sculpture, named it and described it in their sketchbook.