Monday, March 26, 2012

Art Club Spring 2012

We'll explore ideas of Nature this session. In consideration of Springtime, we'll be looking at and creating representations of transformation, renewal and growth. (Looking at: butterflies, seedlings, trees, rivers, and clouds; ideas of life cycles through visual narrative; and growing our own stories and myths.)

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Awesome March Break ...Thank You!

Thank you to everyone involved in making our March Break Art Club+ so much fun!(will post some pictures soon--and send that info, your files, and shareware out as well).

Also, let me know if you are interested in meeting once or twice a month for more Robotics. We are going to be working on some "hacks" and building on our learning from March Break.

Our Robot mornings were very busy, with you campers leading very quickly into new and more challenging programming ideas. You are very good learners and very patient with yourselves (and your "teachers"!)... your efforts paid off with great thinking and learning about the possibilities of programming, and by working complicated, and often repetitive, tasks into your Robots accomplishments.

We learned about GUI, sensors, sub-routines and plotting on an x,y axis. We wrote our letters, and our names, and we created great Robot art...inspired by and building on each others ideas. You all did a really great job committing to the work with enthusiasm, and having fun with it too.

We also discovered our elastic cars worked best with rubber-band tires,our ornithopter crashed slightly less with a shorter tail, and that we can take great photos and use the computer to manipulate how they look. So glad we got our plastic hardened before a certain someone ate it all, phew! Friday's robot ballet and demo's was a nice way to share what we had done with our new friends.

We had great special guests for Drama games(Thank you Krystii!) and Photography (Thank you Maylynn!) And our always special, talented, and fearless Recreation Expert Heather kept everyone on task and schedule...and so much more. Thank you again! Our Tech expert "Mr.Walsh"(another big Thank You!) guided us through the technologies of Robotics and led us into our
daily efforts on the computer as we chased down our own ideas. Great job grown-ups!

Our youngest campers made lovely artworks each morning - exploring clay, paint, food, sound potions, natural and found objects, and paper mache, amongst other materials. Then you(they) joined our older campers for lunch and our afternoon activities. We made some space art, we did our colour wheels, learning new terms and mixes, we did bubble art, and tried out our formulas for bubble mix and bubble blowers(well, mostly Heather and I worked on that while you all enjoyed sunny weather, the swing and the hammock!!)...We explored in the yard with sticks, discovered and dug up moss and worms, and made mouse and fairy houses too...we loved playing Beaver Sam(thanks L.), had fun with chalk, loved playing our games with Krystii, and doing our shadow puppet plays.

I really enjoyed our week together. Thanks to all for joining in, contributing ideas and sharing in the fun.
Sylvie

(fyi: Art Club Spring Session will start the week of April 10th. Tuesdays and Wednesdays as usual)