4/15/15 Workshop Douglass-Truth Library Kaylah

Location: Douglass-Truth Library

Time: 5-7:30pm

Date: 4/15/15

     Today I was a lead for the early literacy activity. I prepared for the kids to make “silly sentences.” I had five printed out lists of words and phrases. Each paper was labeled 1-5. The instructions were for the kids to start in numerical order, pick and write down one word (or set) from each sheet, and the end the result would be a silly sentence. After they had their silly sentence written down, they would then draw a picture to accompany it.

     The children were intrigued from the start. They all had access to blank sheets of paper and art supplies. As they began to create their sentences, they would take time to critically think about what they wanted their sentence to say next.  As they thought of the possibilities, they were so amused and laughter ensued. One sentence example was “the happy lion played cards with the grumpy penguin,” followed by an illustration.  Not only did they create sentences, they visualized what was being read too. The kids didn’t stop with one picture, many walked away with a stack of papers that they made.

     At the end, when the session was slowing down they wanted to try origami. The only thing I knew how to make was a paper airplane, so I taught them step by step how to make them. We decorated them and had races outside. Willa knew how to make paper cranes so we tried those as well.

     Overall I believe this EL activity was a success. Everyone was practicing writing words, sentence structures, and visualizing. All these things were done with having fun! Even some of the other student volunteers poked in and made their own. I think that the children had a fun day and didn’t know they could have so much fun when writing.   

4/8/15 Workshop Douglass-Truth Library Kaylah

Location: Douglass-Truth Library

Time: 5-7pm

Date: 4/8/2015

     Today I worked with the kids. We brought an assembled puppet show stage and we showed the kids how to make puppets by decorating brown paper lunch bags. There were many art materials to choose from including crayons, markers, colored pencils, construction paper and even googley eyes. At first they seemed unsure of what to do but after we had a few lead examples going, they soon were excited about what they wanted to create.

     During the process of creating there were conversations among the children about what kinds of stories they could come up with. Everyone involved at the table made a puppet. It was a nice day outside, and as a group we decided to conduct the puppet show outdoors. Us older students became the audience, and the children quietly discussed behind the curtain what the show was going to be. One of the kids was pretty bossy about the whole process and what she wanted to do, and wanted others to do. The other children had less vocal personalities and avoiding conflict, they went along with the plans.

     Overall everyone seemed to enjoy making their own puppets and using their imagination. The kids even thought it would be amusing to see us older students star in a show as well. Art was the first theme, but equally important was creative thinking with the stories, and collaboration. I enjoyed this workshop. Being a part of crafty activities with children was a nice outlet from my own work. They were so energetic and enthusiastic about their creations. I think it is important to have a creative mindset, not just for artist purposes, but also for thinking in life in general.

4/1/2015 Workshop Douglass-Truth Library Klarissa

Location: Douglass-Truth Library

Time: 5-7

Date: 4/1/2015

For the crafts with the kids we did a photography through literacy project, which Ivette lead, called My Favorite Place. We all thought of our favorite place and drew it with oil pastels. Then, we had our pictures taken from behind so we could glue ourselves, cut out, into our favorite place. But one thing, we forgot to have them write anything about their favorite place, so I’m not sure about the literacy goal there. A few kids drew libraries as their favorite place, which is exciting. After that, since some of the girls had wanted to do origami last week, we did a little bit of origami. Willa and I had prepped by practicing a few different shapes. However, they were not as interested in doing the origami now. Instead they were excited to be in the library this month, and so we spent an hour in the kids section. We asked the kids about what they liked to read, but for the most part they browsed through the books on their own. I noticed the younger girls picked up some princess books, and I wonder how much that is because gender stereotypes are marketed to children.

I did not look too much at the books in terms of content or messages, as I was surprised at how nostalgic I felt looking at all the books I had read in elementary and middle school. Thinking back, the books I read, such as the Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairie series, privilege the story of white American settlers. But it seemed like there were some more books that showed other perspectives. One of the girls showed me her favorite book which seemed to deal with modern indigeneity. 

4/22/2015 Casa Latina Workshop Willa

Casa Latina
April 22nd, 2015
4:30 - 8:00 PM

The planned activity with the children today was centered around Earth Day. Klarissa had printed out a paired sheets of paper - the top paper was a drawing of the earth for coloring and another sheet underneath that you glue the earth to. On the the second sheet of paper, the kids are supposed to write down four things that they like about the earth or that they want to improve. The earth that is glue over this sheet of paper is cut so that you can reveal the words underneath.

It was a lot of fun. All the of kids started to color in their earth - mostly blue for the water and green for the land. The kids mentioned that they like trees and want to recycle more. One of the girls didn't want to cut their earth out and glue it because that would be too mean to the earth.

4/1/15 Casa Latina Workshop Willa

Casa Latina
April 1st, 2015
4:00 - 8:00 PM

I worked both with the women and the children. I started with working with the women. I'm not sure I contributed very much though I did help connect to the Internet on a couple of the tablets. Half way through I switched to helping with the children because a couple of them wanted to make origami. After I helped with the origami making, I helped Brad and Klarissa supervise the kids looking at the children's book section.

I really liked that the space is big enough for both the children and the adults. I like having both groups in the same space. It seemed easier for us to help back and forth with both the adults and the children. I also think that it did not disturb the learning process for the adults too.