Read and hear the work of our young writers!
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Summer Camps
Summer camps are in full swing, but there's still time register. Check here for info!
Plus - we've just added a new camp in August!
*Camp at The Booksmith, San Francisco*
Peanut Butter and the Pen – Food Writing for Kids©
Kids ages 8 – 12
August 6th – 10th (1 week) M-F, 9:00-12:15
Location: In the cafe at The Red Vic (1665 Haight Street, across the street from The Booksmith)
Cost: $250 per camper, includes a journal, pen, and snacks
Check out our 4 new weeks of camps in SF in July!
To make certain you receive camp updates please sign up for our newsletter.
Here's our Creative Writing Camp Lineup for 2012!
(Read full descriptions of each camp at the bottom of this camp page.)
Camps at Seesaw in San Francisco
All camps are from 9:00 am - 12:30 pm. Kids ages 8 - 12.
(Read full descriptions of each camp at the bottom of this camp page.)
Peanut Butter & the Pen - Food Writing for Kids!©
July 9th - 13th
Grammar-ama and The Punctuation Party©
July 16th- 20th
Stamps and Letters©
July 23rd - 27th
Take Flight!©
July 30th - August 3rd
Location: 600A Octavia Street, Hayes Valley, San Francisco
Cost: $230 per camper, 10% off for each sibling registrant.
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Camp at 18 Reasons in San Francisco
What Would the Big Bad Wolf Make for Supper? A Fairtytale Food Romp©
June 18th - June 22nd (1 week) M-F, 9:00-12:15, Kids ages 8 - 12
We're going to re-imagine beloved fairytales using food as a central theme. Of course, to do that we'll be eating food and learning to use metaphor, simile and other writing tools to write about all things edible.
Location: 18 Reasons, 3674 18th Street, in the Misson District
Cost: $250 per camper, 10% discount to children of 18 Reasons members, 10% off for each sibling registrant. Tuition includes a journal and pen and snacks.
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Camps at Classroom Matters, 2436 Sacramento St. in Berkeley
(Read full descriptions of each camp at the bottom of this camp page.)
Stamps and Letters©
July 30 - August 3 (1 week) M-F, 9:00-4:00 Kids ages 8 - 12
Bedtime Story: Write & Illustrate Your Own Children's Book©
August 6 - 10 ( 1 week) M-F, 9:00 - 4:00 Kids ages 8 - 12
Cost: $350 per camper for 9 am - 4 pm. After- care until 5pm for $25 extra per week.
Tuition includes a journal and pen, snacks and art materials.
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Classes at Piedmont Parks and Recreation
for kids 9 years old and up
Parents who want to register for Piedmont camps can do so through their online catalogue at http://www.ci.piedmont.ca.us/recreation/catalog.shtml * Tuition includes a journal and pen, snacks and for full day camps, art materials.
* Please note, the catalogue prices are not correct. When you click into their registration software you'll see the correct prices.
Peanut Butter & the Pen - Food Writing for Kids!©
June 18-22 (1 week) M-F, 9:00-12:00
Grammar-ama and The Punctuation Party©
July 9-13 (1 week) M-F, 9:00-12:00
Stamps and Letters©
July 16-20 (1 week) M-F, 9:00-12:00
Take Flight!©
July 23-27 (1 week) M-F, 9:00-4:00
Bedtime Story: Write & Illustrate Your Own Children's Book©
July 30-August 3 (1 week) M-F, 9:00-4:00
Found Treasures & Scavenger Hunts©
August 6-10 (1 week) M-F, 9:00-4:00
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Camp Descriptions:
Peanut Butter & the Pen - Food Writing for Kids!©
Do you have an appetite for writing? Then come join us for Peanut Butter and the Pen – our unique food writing class for kids. We'll taste food, read excerpts from some of literature's greatest writing in praise of food, and explore tantalizing ways to describe all things edible. Then we'll write love letters to our favorite foods, food mysteries and more!
Stamps and Letters©
What is to become of the hand written letter? We’ll practice the (almost lost) art of letter writing, make mail art, have fun with rubber-stamping and then mail our creations to strange and distant lands.
Bedtime Story: Write & Illustrate Your Own Children's Book©
Come in with a notebook, a pencil and your imagination and leave with an original children’s book. We’ll learn the building blocks for creating an engaging story for younger readers (K – 2), and after exploring different illustration techniques, create original illustrations.
Grammar-ama and The Punctuation Party©
Brushing up on writing mechanics should never be boring! Take our Dangling Modifier Dare and join our Participle Parade. Our take on commas and conjunctions will tickle your funny bone and leave you wanting more!
Take Flight!©
Using art and creative writing we'll explore flight – flights of fancy, the flight of the bumble bee, the first airplane flight, space flight, the flight of Cupid’s arrow, and more. Come fly with us!
What is our camp day like?
Half day camps:
We'll spend each day with paper and pencil, immersing ourselves in words centered around the camp theme. Our writing activities are designed to spark kids' imaginations and include solo and collaborative writing projects. Camp culminates in a reading and art exhibit for parents and friends at the end of the week. Plus, we'll read writing by well-known authors, edit, painting, snack, erase, gab, read stories, as well as admire and share our work.
Full day camps:
We'll spend half of each day with paper and pencil, immersing ourselves in words centered around the camp theme. Our writing activities are designed to spark kids' imaginations and include solo and collaborative writing projects. The other half of the day we'll interpret that same theme using visual art, exploring a range of mediums. Camp culminates in a reading and art exhibit for parents and friends at the end of the week.
Plus, we'll read writing by well-known authors, look at art by famous artists and have fun drawing, writing, editing, painting, snacking, erasing, gabbing, reading stories, as well as admiring and sharing our work.
Teaching art for our full day camps this summer are two artists, Angela Baker, and Laurie Croft.
Angela has a Bachelor of Fine Art from the Columbus College of Art and Design, with an emphasis in painting and drawing. Since 2001 Angela has been teaching both in-school and after school visual art classes with established San Francisco arts organizations such as Leap…imagination in Learning, ArtSpan and the San Francisco Arts Education Project. Angela is also an exhibiting painter whose work has been showcased in group and solo shows in Budapest, San Francisco and New York.
Laurie is an artist and art instructor at MOCHA (Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland) teaching classroom field trips and off-site Community Workshops curriculum and craft projects based on California Visual Arts standards. She was the designer of Flying Colors Ceramics sold nationally and commissioned by the Guggenheim Museum to produce jewelry based on their permanent collection. Laurie has a BFA in painting from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio and is currently taking Early Childhood Development classes at Merritt College.
Creative writing will be taught by our wonderful instructors. Their bios are here.
There have been numerous inquiries about our summer camp schedule. We are busy firming up all of the details so it's in the works and we will have specific details available soon.
In the meantime, please send an e-mail to admin@takemywordforit.net indicating:
- the name of your child
- his or her age
- whether you are interested in our East Bay or San Francisco-based camps
- what time frame and length of camp you're looking for (1st week of July, all day; third week of June, 1/2 day, etc.)
Stay tuned!
- The "Take My Word For It!" team
On Thursday at "The Word Party!" we started out with a free write based on this prompt:
List 6 uses for tissue paper. Then write a story based on one of your ideas.
Here's what Naomi came up with:
"One day a boy was walking down a busy street. Then all of the sudden a bull started charging him. Then he remembered he had some red tissue paper in his pocket. Then he hung the tissue paper on a pole and the bull charged it and got his horns stuck long enough to let the boy run away."
For the rest of the day we worked on writing within certain restrictions -- according to very specific rhyme structures, rhythm, etc. First I challenged the kids to write a lipogram -- which is a piece of writing in which a specific letter is left out. It was pretty tricky to write a paragraph without using an "a"!
Then we tackled 6-word memoirs and wishes. I asked the students to each capture a wish or a memory by using just six words. Two fun examples:
Ella: "I cut my hair and screamed."
Naomi: "I wish to go to Greece."
Next up was Haiku, a form of poetry that follows a pattern of 5 syllables in the first line, 7 syllables in the second line, and 5 syllables in the last line. Many of us had to rework our original thoughts to fit this specific scheme. Here's a haiku from Kian:
"A bear climbed a tree
And he fell all the way down
Fell in the water."
Finally, we had some fun writing limericks, which have a tricky pattern and rhyme scheme. Noreen agreed to share her limerick on the blog today:
"There once was a little ducky
Who wasn't very lucky.
He tried to find a 4-leaf clover
He jumped over a dog named Rover
And he fell into mud that was mucky."
Here are more photos from yesterday's Found Poetry project!
Kian
Noreen
Ella
Max
Today we had a lot of fun creating Found Poetry. Found Poems take existing words and phrases and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. Found Poetry is like making a collage with words.
To collect the words we'd use for our poems, we went on a Word Expedition. First, I asked the students to collect words that were already lurking inside our classroom, using the following guidelines:
- 10 words from those written on the bulletin boards, signs, white boards, etc.
- 10 words chosen from three specific pages in the Algebra books
- One "Y", one "Q", and 3 "B" words from the dictionary
After the students had found the words they liked from these sources and written them in their journals, we pored through magazines and cut out words that jumped out at us. I reminded the kids to look for nouns, adjectives and verbs so they could build a strong poem.
After taking a break for snack, we continued our expedition outside. We discovered words on street signs, cars, and bulletins posted at the rec center.
When we went back inside, the challenge really began. Using the words we found from all the different sources, we created poems on construction paper. It was fun to move words around and see what kind of combinations we could come up with. You can see some of the results below!
Alan
Helena
