Dwarf workshop
Text and photos: Nicoleta Oprea
On Saturday at school, we met the children's playmates. The little ones took their favourite toy with them, which they introduced to us. We enjoyed meeting them and look forward to seeing them again at our workshop!
As a challenge for children and parents, they all participated in a karaoke, competing in singing their favourite children's songs.
When the urge to play came over us, we played "The bear sleeps and dreams that his slippers are dancing".
On the creative side, the children modelled various figures out of plasticine. For inspiration, we used the animal cards, on the basis of which the children named, imitated sounds or mimicked animal movements.
With the help of Stefania's teddy bear and the image of the fox, the characters from the story "The Bear Fooled by the Fox" came to life in a scene created on the spot.
Romanian language and culture
Text and photos: Eliza van Peppen
With the lesson of 22 September we opened the theme "Autumn and its fragrances". Playing with coloured leaves, chestnuts, hazelnuts, apples, through the process of conversation, we described the autumn season and its characteristics. The children learned that the day becomes shorter, the night longer, cold and rain make their presence felt more often, the travelling birds leave for warm countries, nature shakes off its coat and prepares for winter, animals stock up and prepare their nest for hibernation.
To the music of the song "The Wind Blows the Leaves", we danced and described different movements suggested by the lyrics of the song.
Full of energy and good cheer, we had fun, metamorphosing into a strong wind, a gentle wind, a swallow, a grandmother, an old man, a mockingbird.
The fun continued with the numbers from 1 to 10 that under the children's magic wand we tamed and locked in the house of the goblins who produce thoughts and work hard every evening.
Reading the story "The Ugly Duckling" moved and encouraged us to tell stories about our own exploits and feelings. So we named feelings like sadness/happiness, loneliness/fulfilment, good mood, fear/anger, delighted/joy.
Our meeting ended with a creative moment, through watercolour painting we created an autumn landscape.
Play, personal development and photography
Text and photos by Raluca Tudorache
Last Saturday we had a lot of autumn excitement. We met our favorite toys and learned a little story about each one.
Later we talked about autumn and how to keep our energy up when the weather isn't so nice. We talked about weather, clouds and rain, learning through play about the water cycle in nature, what happens when clouds meet and how atmospheric decay happens. We played rain, becoming rain until we got tired of all the drizzle and wind, especially as we're going to get plenty of it soon.
Thus warmed we were more at ease when it came to emotions and feelings. We continued with a game we called the feelings mask. Holding up a note with a feeling written on it the children had to show that feeling. Then we passed these feelings between us. From delight to laziness and indifference we went through many interesting states, which amused some and intrigued others.
From masks we then became statues and statuesque groups and after we had shaken off our stubbornness, we warmed up again with some funny games like the tangled guts and the snake, exercising our patience, but also our energy, agility and elasticity.
At break time the children exchanged snacks, we sang Happy Birthday to Matilda, who was very kind to serve us with jellybeans and we listened to our favourite music.
After the break we moved on to more serious things, but of course still through play: discussing interesting issues through a quiz. That's how we learned about the eyes of chameleons and giant squids, how big our sun is, some of the most important capitals, adult teeth and other interesting trivia.
We plan to continue the quiz next time, along with other art activities, such as a large collage of animals and fantastical creatures representing the world as we want it to be.
