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BUSINESS SKILLS, inspiration, wellness

Staying Motivated After Snowzilla

It is tough staying motivated when you work from home. Often schedules get gooey and the line between work and home life is not really a line, more a series of dashes and smudges. Being productive requires a lot of pep talks in front of the mirror, and a decent amount of self control. Sometimes it’s easy …

motivation, summer camp

Four More Days Until Camp!!!

I tremble ever so slightly as I write this. I don’t know why I get so nervous leading up to camps, I mean, I’m experienced, I’m prepared: I’ve written the curriculum, I have the materials and I know what I’m doing – what’s the big deal??? It’s just me. To be honest, I get nervous about …

art, craft shows, small business

Montessori, Murals, and Mayhem!

I never managed to blog last week; May is always the busiest month of the year for me. I had my babies in May and, weirdly enough, so did many of my friends, so there are birthdays to plan and attend, and many, many presents to buy and give. May is also a month of …

balance, books, BUSINESS SKILLS, crafter, creativity, design, education, family, kids, motivation, multitasking, obstacles, schedule, small business, spontaneity, summer camp, Uncategorized, work ethic, working from home

The Luxury of a Full Work Week

The  last two weeks have been pretty productive, thanks in part to the lovely Spring-like weather. With no sudden, unexpected snow days, I managed to finish screen-printing all 1 million of my products (Well, it certainly felt like 1 million!). I have also almost finished ironing them all as well. My right bicep is now impressively larger than the …

creativity, working from home

Why routine is my frenemy

I had a baaaad printing day yesterday. I made so many silly mistakes, messed up so many shirts. My head was fuzzy, and my heart was just not in my work. It was a thoroughly unproductive day. I think all the many, many snow days have thrown me off. Last week was like this: one …

art and design, British Indian, creativity, design, education, family, kids, learning, parenting, small business, spontaneity, summer camp, teaching, Travel, working from home

Towns, Cities, and Home

The last summer camp is done, and I’m off to England for my very well-deserved break (Says who? Says I!) feeling tired, bruised, but incredibly happy. I’m going home. I know, I know, Vienna, Virginia is my hometown  now, and it is indeed lovely and welcoming, and I like being here. However, there is always that feeling …

art and design, creativity, design, education, family, inspiration, kids, learning, parenting, Play, small business, summer camp, teaching, working from home

Self Portraits, Sundaes, and Silly Games

Another week of camp has passed, and I’m getting ready for my final, glorious week of teaching before I depart for the UK, and a month of rest and relaxation. I would really like to write a lengthy and descriptive post, like I did last week, but to be honest I’m tired. Knackered – to …

art and design, creativity, education, inspiration, kids, learning, motivation, parenting, Play, small business, spontaneity, summer camp, teaching, working from home

The Value of Playtime

This week’s camp was all about the five senses, so the kids spent a lot of time being hungry (taste, and smell seem to be the all round favorite senses, hands down, no big surprise!).

 

Work

We looked at Wayne Thiebaud’s heavily textured paintings of cakes and other desserts, and used palette knives to ‘frost’ our own paintings. We learned about Synesthesia, and discussed how artist, Wassily Kandinsky visualized sounds. The kids produced drawings of music, and sat bent over  paper furiously scribbling to The White Stripes, Bob Marley, Tchaikovsky, and hot jazz. We learned about color theory and color symbolism. We drew objects, while feeling them, and not looking at them. We gawped at pictures of scarification, and body art, and made a horrible mess working with clay. We made a lot of horrible messes.

The campers loved ‘Lick and Lather’ – Janine Antoni’s chocolate and soap sculptures, and had some amazing insights about her work, which led to a need for an ice cream party (any excuse!).  On Friday, we sniffed and identified different scents, and made little scent jars to take home and experiment with.

Yup, a lot happened, and that’s just the art. But, if you ask me, some of the most important learning happened during break times.

 

Play

On Monday, after a morning of working  indoors, I told my students to go out and play in the sunshine – “But, what should we play?” they asked me, “I don’t know, whatever you want to!”  I said, “But, we don’t know what to play! they retorted, “This is boring, can you make up a game for us?”.

I refused flatly, and mercilessly threw them out into the wild jungle that is North American suburbia. What happened? Well it wasn’t pretty, there was awkwardness, sulking, whining and a few fights at first, but by the end of the week, the kids were begging for more play time. They made up complex games, hashing out the rules in long, drawn out negotiations, and bonded beautifully. They even organized an end of week performance, made posters by themselves, and practiced relentlessly for it the whole of Friday afternoon.

I think free playtime is really important for kids. Sure, teacher organized play activities have their merits – I often organize games and activities for my students, but I also often step away a lot during break times, and that’s when the good stuff happens.

Who needs a teacher looking over your shoulder all the time? Alone, kids learn to solve problems and counsel one another. Free play fosters the building of skills such as negotiation, team work, conflict resolution, imagination, creativity, and problem posing and solving. My classroom is almost always a better place after a long break. I remember devising so many new games during my long recesses at school, so let’s let our kids get a bit bored this summer, and see where it leads them!

If you are so inclined, check out Hopscotch, Hangman, Hot Potato, & Ha Ha Ha,  the wonderful book I have photographed below; it is a great starting point for encouraging kids to just get out and do their thing! Also, There is a photo of a  fabulous novel for kids, A Mango Shaped Space by Wendy Mass, that teaches you about Synesthesia (I think that merits a post of it’s own!).

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art and design, creativity, education, family, inspiration, kids, learning, parenting, small business, spontaneity

Elementary, my dear…

Unfortunately, today’s blog will not be about my favorite TV series, Sherlock, or the splendid Mr Cumberbatch, I just like a good play on words. I have mentioned before that I am a trained middle and high school teacher. Teaching middle and high school Art is something I adore doing. I especially revel in the …

design, Travel

A Summer Discovery

I have just spent a relaxing weekend by the sea, comfortably ignoring all of my tasks and deadlines, and focusing on just swimming, eating, playing with the kids, and wandering around. While ambling along thus, I happened to stumble upon a beautiful little shop – The Main Street Shop and Coffeehouse – in Chincoteague VA. …

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