Hellooooo, I’m still here! I’m just not very good at regular blogging as I’m sure all five of my regular readers will know. Snort! Still so good at amusing myself.
Now that school is back in session, here is a look back at this year’s Noctiluna Summer Camp.
A Little Bit About The Camp
I think of the camp as a creativity camp as opposed to an art camp. Yes, we do learn about art and art skills and we produce art, but a much more important objective of the camp is to foster creative thinking, problem solving and ideation – something critical for all areas of our lives. These critical skills run like a thread through every aspect of the camp, from lunchtime conversations and outdoor play, to classroom critiques and brainstorms. Often, the same kids come back year after year to our camp and we can observe their thinking skills grow and strengthen until they start to mentor newer campers. The best part? All this growth happens under the guise of fun! I think it would be easy to pick Noctiluna campers out of an art classroom line up purely based on their critical analysis and problem solving skills. This year, a couple of former long-term campers, who will always be part of the Noctiluna family, set off to study design courses at college. I know for sure that they will go on to have a huge positive impact on the world.
This Year’s Themes:
Ancient Illustration and Storytelling
Students read and learned about a variety of world mythology and looked at illustration and book making from various cultures during medieval times, before focusing in on the ancient art of Indonesian Wayang Kulit puppetry. They then created their own puppets and produced and performed a modern Wayang Kulit show. This included designing and making characters and scenery, writing and performing scripts and working as a team to produce and film their play.
Transit Design and Urban Planning. Campers discussed the role of public transport and analysed various transit systems from around the world. They then looked at their own communities and designed public transit systems that would work within these. They then produced easy to read topographic maps for their transit systems. Following this, they worked in groups to plan out their own towns and design maps of them. At the end of the week, students took part in a printmaking project, where they designed train cars and printed them as a group, combining their designs to make vehicles.
Most importantly, we spent a lot of time playing – the ultimate creative pursuit. We had Limbo and High Jump contests. Played board games, Badminton, Cricket, Frisbee, Freeze Dance, Musical Chairs, and Twister; made up a lot of strange games, poked at things with sticks, found bugs, told stories and laughed. It was a pretty good camp. Now I have to start planning dates for next summer’s camps!
