We started the last Monday of summer camp with some calming yoga in nature, we took account of our surroundings and searched for things to bring us inspiration. Then we created idea notebooks and shared with others what we would like to create for the rest of the week. And, of course, we searched in the river for inspiration, and critters too.
This Tuesday we took our inspirations from yesterday, combined it with the expertise of our special guest from the Arvada Arts Center, and created some beautiful Senufo inspired mud paintings. We used natural materials for the pigment and to paint with and learned an appreciation for other cultures’ traditional arts. We were inspired by our critters in the river and painted beavers, crawdads, and many other fauna and flora of our local habitat.
On Wednesday we continued our story by learning how to compose a story. We talked about what parts there are to a story, important elements, and some traditional story tropes. We wrote our own comic trips, came up with a whole group story, and learned some native stories about the land we are currently on.
Thursday was field day! And we all had a blast finding the shade in the park and along our river looking for bugs and plants to identify, places to meditate, and draw the world around us. We still got our jitters out on the playground and through the art of dance during free times and found lots of great critters in the river in the afternoon too.
On our very last Friday of camp this summer we gave thanks for all the fun times we’ve had making cards to our special guests and friends. We worked together to create a collaborative art project and even created some brand new animals from our imaginations. At graduation we cheered each other on in our strengths from this week and wished each other well in the school year to come, then closed out the summer with some fun in the rain to cool off.
Week 9: STEAM with SPREE