Dwarf workshop
Text and photos: Nicoleta Oprea
Although the tally at home didn't match the one at the fair, the fun was great at school, even with only one little kid present. Charlie took centre stage at the workshop.We wrote on the digital whiteboard together and had fun with the result.
Together with Charlie, we brought the toys in the kit to life: we built turrets out of lego pieces, arranged the cubes and Charlie knocked them down with a touch, started all the little cars and frogs with their enchanted keys or played the organ.I read about the adventures of the naughty sheep and accompanied her on her adventure. Football was another attraction, until I got tired. After all that playing, the lunch break came.
See you at a new workshop, where we will enjoy sun, colours and flowers!
Romanian language and culture
Text and photos: Eliza van Peppen
Here again, with joy and enthusiasm, we met for a new lesson that excited us and opened our appetite for knowledge. Last Saturday, after a brief recap of what we learned about the Easter feast, we tackled a new topic "Insects". Locusts, butterflies, spiders, flies, ladybugs, mosquitoes, bees, all buzzing as if on parade, paraded gracefully, revealing themselves and being admired. Using this video (http://educatie.inmures.ro/materiale-didactice-pentru-prescolari/filmulete-video-pentru-prescolari/insectele.html) as a starting point, we tested and enriched our knowledge. With the help of the images on our film and through conversation, we learned who insects are, what parts they are made of, how many kinds of insects we know, what they feed on, etc.
As play is not missing from our lesson and is an important part of our approach, we started playing in class, we turned, one by one, into butterflies and bees, then into spiders and flies, weaving a big spider web with squeals and joy.
As the sun through the window also laughed at us, our play continued outside in the schoolyard. We continued our exploration of insects outdoors at the school playground.
We ended our lesson with a song, "On a dandelion strand, sings a cricket..." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiuNvh20F1U0 and a creative activity.
Since ladybugs were not left uncovered outside, we thought we'd create our own ladybug out of cardboard and paper. The work turned out beautifully and the children proudly took them home.
Play, personal development and photography
Text: Raluca Tudorache
The last photography lesson was a delight, again exploring nature in its intimate and surprising detail with a keen and curious eye. The theme of the lesson was focus and balance.
We had a short discussion with the kids before we went outside about some of the things we had already learned, such as composition, perspective, detail, abstract elements in photography. It's always good to review and remind ourselves of things already covered. So now we've gone deeper in our approach both conceptually and practically.
After many photographic approaches and experiments, it's time to try to find our own vision. Some of the children have already developed a vision and are stimulatingly applying all the notions we went through together, taking a very creative and bold approach.
After the latest experiments, it's important that children are already becoming more aware and even disciplined when it comes to how they make choices before they press the camera button. They need to notice how important it is that before they take a picture themselves, they have to make precise choices regarding the balance of the chosen content.
A very important aspect in my proposed approach is to find the point of interest in an image, represented either by a certain position of the chosen object or subject, focus or lack of it, size, colour, shape and personal imprint. Attention to such details can tell a lot about a child's inner world and inner interests. It is interesting to see how they can tell a story or communicate a mood through images. What they choose to show in a photograph depends on their sense of observation, their sensitivity and curiosity, their ability to synthesise and, why not, their technical skills. But it is clear that photography is a medium to which they respond enthusiastically and evolve rapidly, incorporating seemingly abstract notions and technical detail very naturally.
So their choice of preferred type of photography is already obvious. Whether it is abstract photography, various installations, nature or landscape, individual or group portraits, details, their creativity is really overflowing. That's why they have also been rewarded with small prizes to stimulate them even more.
