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Summer Camp 2011 - Daily Diary: Miraloma Day 2

Yesterday morning, on Day 2, we kids continued to write tirelessly about dreams - no pun intended :)

This time see some of our students "dreams for the world":

 

By Emogene

My dream for the world is that people will not litter.

 

By Junior

I wish I could help people in cancer. I want to help my friend Miles end his cancer because he is very talented and he is the only one in the school that can do the splits and because he is only eight.

 

By Choochie (Naomi)

My dream for the world is that there is world peace because war is causing a bad influence on children and destroying the world. I also want global warming to stop so the animals in Antarctica will have a place to live. I also want the doctors to find a cure to AIDS, cancer and diabetes. I also want everyone in the world to be happy and no people to get discriminated against for their color or their size.

 

The following are some samples from our exercise designed to illuminate personality traits:

 

By Madeline

The glistening leaves shown on display by the old pine trees while I walked through the clan of trees taller than my wonders of how many trees there could be. I heard some rustling, then a quiet breeze and I saw a crack of sunlight escaping through the branches of the forest. The sunlight touched down on a small rocky path with dirt sprinkled on top of the rocky road. The path seemed to go on and on through the forest and out into the middle of nowhere. Suddenly I tripped and right in front of me I saw and old rusty key. I picked it up and stuffed it into my jean pocket.

 

By Isabella

It is a dark dense forest with big great green pine trees. It is misty and cold and the birds are no longer singing their melody. It smells of water because there are dewdrops on the blades of grass underneath your feet. Now the owls are waking and swooping around you, looking for mice! Now you follow an owl and it leads you to a path. The path is dirt and looks as if no one has used it for years. Weeds are sprouting up and there are puddles in the dirt making cold soft mud. It curves around the forest like a snake so you can no longer see it.

 

By Emily

If I were in a forest I would hear birds, all different kinds of birds chirping. I would smell wet leaves and dry dirt. I would feel wet leaves and soft animals. I would see all different greens and different flowers, different animals. I found myself walking on a path. The path had big flat stones in the dirt. As I walked along, I wondered to myself: this path looks manmade. I wonder who made this path. Just then my eye fell upon something shiny. It was a key. The key didn’t look like a house key; it looked like an old fashioned key. I decided to pick it up.

 

Then, after lunch, we talked about Surrealism and how artists channel dreams and symbols. We looked at examples of a game surrealists  played called "Exquisite Corpses" where one person draws a head, folds over the paper and passes it to the next person to draw a torso etc. We had a great time seeing the results of our group drawings and decided to draw another round! You'll see our results on Friday. For our next project we talked about symbols that the students used in a morning writing exercise and drew and painted a surrealist painting that included a key and a door. We cut out the door image so it "hinged" and tomorrow each student will draw or write something to put behind the door.

After a HOT Monday, all of us enjoyed the cool breeze on Tuesday and took a few breaks between projects for outside activity in the wonderful playground.

 

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Keep checking back for more updates on our wild summer adventures!

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Summer Camp 2011 - Daily Diary: Miraloma Day 1

Hello parents!

This blog is to keep you informed about what's going on in camp - because, as we all have experienced, sometimes our kids don't tell us very much about what they did all day!

As I think most of you know, the theme of the week is "Dream It Up," where we will be swimming around in our imaginations, dipping into our dreams, and then picking up a paintbrush and pen to record what we find.

 

We had a blast at camp yesterday! Take a look at some of the great pics we got, and a few writing samples below:

 

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Writing:
Below see Naomi and Calla's dreams/nightmares and Elizabeth's dream for herself...

By Coochie (Naomi)

My family took me to Palm Springs. When we got back, we visited my aunt, Rita. Then my parents left me and my sister, went home and adopted two more kids. Then my aunt died and we got sent to an orphanage in Japan.

 

By Calla

 

I went to a science museum and I went into a room with three skeletons. One of them was a shark, one of them was an alligator and one of them was a lion. I went into the room and then there was a flood and all of the animals became real. They chased me out of the room. Once I was outside, they turned back into skeletons.

 

By Elizabeth

 

When I grow up I want to be a pastry chef. I want to live in San Francisco and one place I would like to travel to is Spain. For middle school, I want to go to AP Gianene. For high school, I want to go to Lowell. For college, I want to go to UC Santa Cruz.

  

Then, our afternoon of art started with a paint exploration mixing colors, spattering, stamping and rolling paint to create a cover for each student's sketchbook. After the cover was dry each student punched holes in paper securing their sketchbook with a rubber band and a twig. Throughout the week your child will be sketching their ideas. Sewing and stuffing a Dream Pillow with a pocket to for a dream message was our next project. Some of the students completed their pillow and we will have time tomorrow for those that didn't. Students also started a mural that they will add to this week.

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For those of you not enrolled in camp this summer, it's never too late to sign up! Find more infor on the Summer Camp page of our website!

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Camp is Just Around the Corner!

Ready for our creative writing camps to hit San Francisco and the East Bay?

Emma, Nina, Arielle, Hannele & EsmeFor many of you, this was the last week of school. Goodbye spelling tests, goodbye grammar tests, and goodbye vocabulary tests.

But goodbye words?!? Think again!! Get ready for a wet, wild, and juicy summer with "Take My Word For It!" as we go swimming around in our imaginations, take a few refreshing dips into some ink, and find hidden treasures in unsual places!

While some of our camps focus primarily on creative writing, many of our camps this year fuse both writing and art! With themed weeks where we'll explore the art of letter writing with rubber stamps, investigate and record our dreams, write about scrumptious foods, and more, we're just as eager as you are to get started!

Visit the Summer Camp page on our website and find all the details on schedules, pricing, locations and more!

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What went on at summer creative writing and art camp?

Curious about our camp?

Details and photos of kids' adventures with pen and paintbrush can be found on our "Take My Word For It!" Creative Writing & Art Summer Camp 2010 blog. (Please cut and paste this URL into your browser.)

http://takemywordforit.typepad.com/take_my_word_for_it_summe/



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