Dwarf workshop
Text and photos: Nicoleta Oprea
On Saturday we met, with great joy, at a new altelier. Our topic of discussion was animals. Coincidentally or not, some of the children took a stuffed toy with them, which they are inseparable from at home, and we had a wide-ranging discussion about their friend.
To get to know as many animals as possible, the children did a puzzle, forming pairs of animals. The little ones named them, quickly making the connection between mother and baby, and then we imitated together the sounds the wild animals in the pictures make.
Another game we did was fine motor skills. The children strung pet shapes on string, resulting in a train full of animals. Each success was accompanied by positive feedback from the other participants in the game.In this class, the children learned to jump rope, which was a movement exercise they loved from the beginning and we will repeat in future classes.We then moved on to a musical moment, when the children danced to songs they knew, such as "Oac, oac, diri-diri-dam", "A duckling sits on the lake".From here, we moved on to an exercise of imitating the movements made by animals, watching a video on youtube and we all competed in this game: https://youtu.be/26guG6wr5so.
In the creative part of our workshop, the children drew the outline of some animals, using the shapes they strung on the string, then coloured the worksheet.Next time, I am looking forward to all the children taking their favourite toy with them to show it to us, as it is a good opportunity to get to know each other better.
Romanian language and culture
Text and photos: Eliza van Peppen
Do you know the 3 pranksters who came to our lesson last Saturday?
You may have learned in the meantime that Mr. "Tom" the Kitten, Mr. "ABC Owl" and "Red Riding Hood" the Rooster have honored and thrilled us with their presence. Three silly puppets who came to life and voice with the help of myself and the children. You must know that they are very curious by nature and eager to learn. After Tom, Owl ABC and Red Riding Hood introduced themselves politely and courteously, they asked us lots of questions about who we are, what we do at school, what we like best, what our favourite toy is, who our best friend is, etc. Questions and challenges, not difficult at all for the little ones who impressed the guests with their wit and witty wit. Mr. "Red Riding Hood" didn't let himself down and decided to share his story with us. You guessed it, yes! It's about that story of the 2 penny pouch that was stolen from him by a rich and stingy landlord. With his tenor voice, the proud hunchback began to tell the story. His story moved us. We were all eyes and ears!
New words such as "pleat/chip/clump", "crest", "spur", "ban", "old woman", "old man", "ban", "bag", "garden" caught our attention, and we explained and exemplified them by movement.
Tom the cat has prepared a little song to tell his story. "A cat the size of a kitten". We danced and sang along: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNouXWlcKzA
In the last part of the lesson, we learned more about ourselves and the human face through drawing. Each child created their own portrait. Exercise successfully completed!
This Saturday, I look forward to a new lesson and theme: "Autumn and its richness!"
Play, personal development and photography
Text and photos by Raluca Tudorache
Last Saturday we also inaugurated the photography course of this module of the Romanian School Amsterdam with a lot of fun, smiles and sunshine. Because the weather was absolutely wonderful, it helped a lot with the proposed theme.
What could give children more joy than a permanent holiday and lots of adventures? So we decided that Saturday at the Play Workshop is not school, but a big, endless holiday, as long as our imaginations hold us back.And how can we make inviting holidays permanent in our lives, so that we always have a smile on our lips? By always inventing it. So we started photographing things, objects and even portraits that make us think of the real holiday, or that make us think of the adventures typical of holiday adventures. One by one we took pictures of the sun, the clouds, the sky, the swings at the playground, the vegetation still alive, the sand in the schoolyard that seemed all ours, just like a holiday.
During this time I reminded the children and reminded the new ones of all the things we learned during our photography lessons: about how to choose a subject, how to frame, how important light is, how to pay attention to details, composition, all the elements in a photo, the space and objects we choose to photograph, the distance and angle between the subject and the photographer, the relationship between all these.
Then from game to game we tried to be more creative and sometimes build a small installation for the story we wanted to tell through an image. We explored the space, enjoying the good weather and the cheerfulness inspired by the holiday feeling, not least learning more about art, how to tell a story through images, playing with emotional states and capturing them with cameras, phones or tablets.
