Still in Ba !

I am happy to say that due to some personal circumstances we have had to delay our move to Brazil which means I am here in Ba for the next few months. I have therefor decided to start up Art en Casa again for the time we are here. I hope you will join us for the start of classes at the end of this month March 26th 2012. Looking forward to seeing some familiar faces.

un beso

Bella

End of the year

Thank you so much to all the parents who took the chance and faith to send their children to Art en Casa this past year. It's always a treat to meet new families, most of who are here on their very own South American adventure. I especially want to thank the parents who have been sending their children since I started all the way back in 2009. I hope most of you will still be here when I return. I will really miss you all !

un beso grande

Bella

Christmas part 2

So sadly this was the last week for Art en Casa for a while as after Christmas I will be away for 6 months on a travel adventure, experiencing life in Brazil and Costa Rica but I promise to be back. We played some fun Christmas games to finish off term, pin the nose on the Reindeer, and memory christmas cards. We also added to our festive crafts by making our very own stocking where the kids got to work on their threading skills. We made winter collagues with snowmen and Christmas tree and used lots of glitter which children always love. The children then finished off the class with a small gift which made then very happy especially the lollies.

Christmas part 1

I love Christmas craft time, it must be my favourite time of the year for making things because there is always so much to choose from. Here in Argentina people dont go so crazy with Christmas decorations or gifts so the only place to find any decoration is in the 'chino' shops and even they dont always have basic stuff like wrapping paper. So this year i thought it would be fun to make wreaths so at least the kids could have one to hang on their doors. I pre-cut out holed out circles which the kids painted green. Then they cut out lots of leaves and berries to cover it all up. We then made little standing Christmas trees which are super cute to have around the house.

The Desert

With the children growing up so fast and being able to focus for longer periods of time I have started to do more complicated projects with them. This 'making a desert scene' is lots of fun, looks great, but also takes time and focus. First the children draw with a pencil the dividing lines of the landscape. They then paint each with the correct colour and before the paint dries etch in patterns into the paint to give it more depth and texture. While they wait for the landscapes to dry they can then work on making a sun, snake, cactus and camel. These are drawn, cut out, painted and finally stuck on. The end result as you can see is really great !

Numbers

The past few weeks I have been using the first 10 minutes of class to work on numbers with the children. Most of them will know their numbers 0 to 10 but after that they start to mix them up a bit. So what I do is have large flash cards with the numbers written on them. I get the children to pick them out and order them onto a 'washing line' . I then play a game where they have to shut their eyes then I will take away a number and they must tell me which one is missing. Today I then had a sheet of numbers all mixed up which they had to cut out and stick in the correct order.

Thanks Giving

With Thanks Giving coming up this Thursday I thought it would be a fun story to do. I started by telling the children about the story of the 100 English who had sailed to America on the Mayflower boat. How when they arrive at this new land in the cold of winter they had no food to eat. But luckerly for them some indians came to their help teaching them how to grow their own crops. Thanks Giving comes from the meal they made from all their crops that grew which they then shared with the Indians in thanks. We started with making the boats the pilgrims sailed on. We then drew round our feet and hands to make a Turkey. Lastly made a circle with all the things we where thankful for in our lives. Felix was thankful for his mum dad and TV ;]