Dwarf workshop
Text and photos: Dilek Iusuf
Ass-whupping! Yes, a hard word to say when you're only 2-3 years old, but our Dwarves are doing great!
After so many grey and dark days, we have brought a bit of colour into our lives. So we learned the colours, created a rainbow and played with colourful rings, dancing our hearts out.In 2018 we break the record for the number of Dwarfs, it's a huge progress since the first Little Romania meetings :). Do you find the differences? 2018:2015:Thank you for joining us! See you next week when we do yoga and learn about the color white (like snow)!
Romanian language and culture
Text: Eliza van Peppen
Welcome back! May we all have a year of health, joy and fulfillment! What a joy to see the little ones again and make new acquaintances. Our class has been joined by "freshmen", to whom we once again wish "Welcome!".
Our lesson began with a brief introduction of each of us and our greetings for the beginning of the year. We shared our holiday impressions and reminisced about the months of the year and the season we are in.
To get to know each other better and to develop senses other than the visual one, we played a childhood game. Are you familiar with the game "Fly"? A child stands in the centre with one hand over his eyes, he is a flower, the others are flies buzzing around the flower, and one of the flies will touch the flower. The flower will wake up and guess who touched it. The beginning was a bit slower, but once they got into the game, the ease with which they guessed and the explanations afterwards were impressive. For example: 'he had a little light finger, it could only be 'X''; 'well, I felt a finger press down and I thought it must be 'Y''; 'I heard a buzzing noise and I knew where it came from and who made it'.
Song, good will and reading were not lacking. We listened to the song "It's snowing again" and tried to learn it, of course we still need practice to master the text.We read "The story of the snow and the snowdrop" from the book "Stories from the calendar" by Julia Jordan. It's a simple and beautiful story about how the snow got the colour white. I used the creative moment to make sure the text was well understood. The children were given an exercise to express in pictures a winter landscape with snow and snowdrops as the main elements. The story also talked about other flowers that denied the snow their colour (rose, snowdrop, sunflower, lily). That's how we found out what colours they are and what they look like.
Also from the text of the story, we learned (repeated) the letter and sound "i, I". First, we drew it in the air with our finger, then with our body, then we identified words in the text with this letter (winter, snowdrop, first, flowers, sadness, grasses). Finally, we used our blackboard smart to do an exercise where we had to complete words like i-a (r, n, ă → winter), i-l (e, n → ring), i-p-e (e, u, r → rabbit) etc. It was a successful exercise!
We look forward to seeing you again next Saturday for another lesson, when we will continue with the theme "Winter: winter sports".
Play, personal development and photography
Text and photos by Raluca Tudorache
I wish you an energetic start to the year and a fantastic, prosperous year ahead, full of small and big joys.
I, together with the little ones, during the workshop, will have the opportunity to enjoy special moments, to learn new things, to continue to play in different ways, but also to take a serious look at applied art and science.
I'm glad to have met children full of good cheer and boundless energy, ready to get down and dirty, but curious to try things that sometimes seem strange to them. At least at first. What would it be like to look at the world with new eyes? "What do you mean, with different eyes?" they would say simply and innocently. Well, we only have one pair. Clever as they are, they figured out right away what I was asking of them and this game that started as a game became exciting and ingenious.
After a while of tickling, chasing and petting each other, we suddenly became aware of what emotions we were feeling, and then tried to pass our emotions on. It was interesting to watch them try. They became much more available than before. Which makes me think that, somewhere, all the lessons we've been through together are paying off.At times, we haven't forgotten to pay attention to how we express ourselves and we've even written down new words. We focused on birds, talking about the different kinds of birds we have here, the backyard ones, but also the travelling ones that fly in flocks to warm countries, imitating their sounds and flight.
Then, with trained attention, we practiced looking in depth, noticing details that we sometimes overlook: from what you can see out the window in the neighbours' house to what's in the distance. We described how we see the world in detail, what shapes things have or what they can look like when distance is too great and shapes become blurred. They were surprised to notice how much detail is right under our noses, without us noticing it most of the time.
Then we relaxed with a card game of riddles, and at the end we used the remaining energy to play a game of charades, taking turns becoming helicopters, racing cars, cacti or country aunts.
Next time we'll lean towards photography. Please remember to bring a small digital camera. It would be ideal if the camera has a small screen on which you can see the picture immediately.
So, see you soon and have a great week!
