Pea Pandemonium! and....letters from Capt. Jim Lovell!

The campers are working hard on their play, "Pea Pandemonium" this week. They have done such a great job with their line memorization and really working on their acting skills. I'm so proud of them! They even made flyers to announce their production! Very, very cute.

I'm a little nervous about how many audience members I may end up with in my house... They've done such a good job with their promotion!

Another bit of exciting news...our campers wrote Captain Jim Lovell letters after they watched "Apollo 13" during Space Camp week. They told him the life lessons they learned from watching the film. Well, Capt. Lovell wrote back!

He sent each camper a personal, signed letter! I couldn't believe it. I was truly so honored for the children and excited for them. 

This is my last week of camp for the summer and I'm having some mixed feelings with only two days left. We've had a great deal of fun, learned so much and been truly enriched. I learned about the problems related to palm oil during our wildlife week, and got to know Homer's Odyssey better during Epic Stories week. I was introduced to new artists like Rosina Wachtmeister during Art Camp and I tried out some new recipes during Cooking Camp. I've certainly grown as a person and been enriched! 

My campers have smiles and tell me they will return. I'm not sure if it's because of me, the activities I plan, or...my little dogs! 

I'm guessing it's the dogs!

Art Camp Recap

Art camp has come to a close! What a fun week. I got to get back to my roots of teaching art. I worked for 5 years in the scrapbook/paper arts industry as a product designer, class project designer and instructor. I've often missed those days and this was a fun way to tap into my visually creative side again! 

One of the projects the kids did this week - to wonderful results - was a Paul Klee inspired fish painting using oil pastels and watercolors. 

Mrlundgren1 on You Tube did a tutorial we followed - it was incredible! 

Paul Klee Fish Lesson

This piece had a lot of wonderful technique going on! 

Another fun project was a tissue paper collage. We used elmer's glue mixed with a little water as our Mod Podge medium. The campers loved it and created beautiful pieces. 

Our sculptures were painted on the last day of camp...

And we also took time to go to the park and just sketch...

The camper's with their favorite creations: 

And, I painted a little something at the end of the week too. This was a Sylvia Wachmeister inspired piece. 

I can't wait until art camp next year! 

Art Camp - Wow!

Our video to Michael Jackson's "Black or White." This project taught the kids the ideas that A) Art is EVERYWHERE and B) You can use art to impact social justice! They did a great job!

The kids painted their own "backdrops" for the video shoot. 

One of our other projects this week is paper bag books. We painted the bags with acrylic paint and bound the pages with ribbons. 

Then we made these adorable Claudine Hellmuth inspired Fairies. The kids looked at samples of Claudine Hellmuth and Donna Downey's artwork. 

We made tons of little fairies after taking pictures with my iPhone. I converted the pics to b/w, laid out the prints using the collage app on PicMonkey and printed them on my Canon Selphy.

Then we colored, painted, drew, cut and glued dozens of little fairies!  

More exciting things to come later this week! It's a fun camp...and lots of work for the campers and me! Special thank you to my friends Stevie and Jolie for all their help! Mary Kate has been a huge help as always!