Camp Flaming Arrow

Doing camps at the Purple Twig are rewarding in many ways. It helps families who's children are not in school, we get to come up with a more comprehensive theme and spend the whole day with the kids and financially it helps our studio in times that maybe be slow. The one issue I had was finding a way to get the kids outside experiencing the neighborhood. They can't just spend the entire days indoors. Outside play time is so important. Luckily living in Los Angeles we usually have the weather on our side and so we came up with some great solutions.
For Spring Break this year we came up with the idea of a day camp about a traditional  camp. The idea was to make tents, do bird watching, bug collecting, archery, go on hikes and picnics, along with each day having some reading time and drawing time. It turned out better than I ever expected. We all had a rewarding time.

DAY 1 

ARCHERY

Each morning after doing some warm up drawings the kids settled into the tents for some story time.

We made these colorful arrows by drawing feathers on colored paper and hot gluing (I love the hot glue gun) them to dowel. The kids decorated the dowel with thin strips of tape. We offered the kids many sizes of colored tape so that they could make stripes. We added pencil erasers to the end for the arrow points.

After lunch we took the arrows to a park near us and did some archery by throwing our arrows through a wire hoop decorated with a cardboard center. The kids came up with a lot of other games themselves. It was such a wonderful way to get the kids to work together on the first day. 

DAY 2

BIRDS and POSTCARDS HOME

On the 2nd day we started our birdwatching portion of camp. We made collaged birds starting with white card stock paper. After looking at images of birds the kids chose a bird or made up a bird and drew them onto the white paper. They colored them in and then added all kinds of ribbon and feathers and of course glitter.

We made binoculars from tp tubes and duct tape. The kids had a great time finding all kinds of uses for their binoculars.

In the afternoon, while waiting for our collaged birds to dry, we used printmaking to make postcards to send home. We used scratch foam for this process which is so simple to use. Ages 4 -7 all found this printing engaging. 

Here are the postcards ready to go to the mailbox. 

We all trekked to the mailbox to mail our cards home.

DAY 3

BIRDWATCHING

During lunch I placed the birds in trees and bushes around the neighborhood. We talked about where birds live and where we might look for them. After lunch we went on a bird watching excursion. the kids had to look for their birds hiding in the neighborhood. They used their binoculars which was amazing and some of the older kids who could read and write made check lists for each bird so they checked the birds off as they found them.

DAY 4

TENT PICNICS

We all went on a hike through the neighborhood with flags the children had made that morning.

We hiked to a picnic lunch at the park in our tents.

DAY 5

BUG COLLECTING

After reading about and looking at all kinds of bugs each child made bugs on watercolor paper, beatles, centipedes, and a lot of butterflies.

Again during lunch we pinned the bugs to trees and placed them in bushes for the kids to find.

After we collected all the bugs the kids put them into a collection using a shoe box top. 

Each morning after our initial warm- up free drawing time the kids made badges for each task they accomplished each day. They drew images onto small pieces of cotton and we strung beads onto safety pins to add something special.

Where's My Computer?

My car was broken into about a month ago while I was in Yoga. The perpetrator stole my computer. MY COMPUTER!!!!!!!  As far as I was concerned at the time they stole my entire business. After I washed off the feeling of being violated and went out the same day to buy a new computer, I was just so disappointed with all the work that needed to be done to recoup the lost information, syllabi, photos. Do I back up you ask..........I do now.  I, of course, back up my quickbooks but I hadn't backed up in about 6 months. 6 MONTHS!!!!
The timing of the robbery was also pretty bad. My accountant was already knocking at my door for the tax information. I spent every night for almost a month updating my books, after putting my children to bed, going through bank accounts, going through all the credit card charges, trying to find all the check written. It has been so much more confusing and difficult than I expected.

As I was trying to figure out why the bank account isn't matching up with what the books, I thought "I am getting myself a bookkeeper". I called a friend of mine who is a bookkeeper and found out that I can't quite afford one yet. I taught myself how to work Quickbooks and I am sure that there is a more efficient way to do it with a little tweaking. In talking to other business owners in my neighborhood I realized that knowing my books is a part of knowing what's happening in my business. I know how it's growing and how fast. I know how much is coming in and how much is going out.

Instead of getting a book keeper I decided to ask my accountant if I can get a little tutoring which he was happy to offer, especially because it makes his job easier when my books are more efficient.

Cat Mummies

In our "Animals in Art" class we have been looking at the appreciation of animals in Egyptian art. Did you know that they were one of the first civilizations to domesticate cats? It was honorable for each household to have a cat. Rodents spread diseases rampantly. Cats killed the rodents therefore cats saved lives in ancient Egypt and they were honored by being mummified and buried with their kings and queens. Lucky them. They are odd beautiful objects with the patterned cotton fabric and painted face masks.

We decided to make our own mummified cats.  

I thought plaster strips would be a great material to use. It's easier to use than paper mache and hardens better and faster. The kids can see and feel the transformation from a wet, soft material to a dry, hard one. But we needed to start with an inner structure.

We balled up newspaper, rolled that up in another piece of newspaper, taped it together. We rolled up another ball of newspaper  and taped that to one end of the newspaper roll as the head, We used a shallow plastic container as the nose and taped it to the head. Oh and we needed ears so we cut out cardboard triangles and taped those to the top of the head.

We covered that structure with the plaster cloth and let dry. They were quite beautiful just white.

After the structure was made they really did look like mummies, but they needed some panache. We covered just the body portion with strips of fabric using watered down glue. They choose from all kinds of patterned fabric. We painted the head and let them dry. 

After we outlined the eyes and nose and sometimes ears we needed a final touch to really make them special so we added some gold paint to make them shine. The kids tend to take something like gold paint and just go nuts, covering the entire sculpture a\or painting so I talked about the paint as being special and to really think about where they would like to add that specialness. Some wanted golden ears or a golden nose and some really wanted the body to be gold. Now that I think about it an entirely golden cat mummy would pretty great as well.

The kids were super proud and gave a big roar for their mummies.

  

No Kid Hunger

This morning while I was making breakfast for my kids, I began to think about all the children who didn't get breakfast in the mornings because of lack of food. By the time I got to work I decided to add my voice to the many who won't tolerate such neglect. I looked around at a few different organizations and decide to make a monthly donation to SHARE OUR STRENGTH. It then occurred to me that maybe some of you would also like to add your voice.

Valentines celebration

On Saturday morning we woke up excited to get ready for the neighborhood bake sale at the Purple Twig. In order to celebrate Valentines Day we invited a few families that have been ever so supportive of the Purple Twig to prepare something for a bake sale in front of the shop. My kids love these bake sales. It's a great way for them to earn money. My daughter, Ada wanted to bake some lemon cookies and my son, Gus wanted to bring strawberries. What a delicious Valentines treat.

Ada got started by picking lemons from our tree for the cookies. We used a snicker doodle recipe, added lemon rind and rolled them in pink sugar instead of cinnamon sugar. When the licking of the bowl began, Gus came in to help. 

YUM!

While the treats were being had outside, we were offering workshops all day inside.  We were printing Valentines and making treat boxes. Ages 2 to 52 were printing, printing, printing beautiful Valentines. 

These were made by a three year old.

It's such a simple process perfect for printing cards. We first cut printing foam to 4 X 5 inches, . Then cut different colors of card stock 4.5 X 5.5. We give the kids short skewers to draw into the print foam. Using water soluble printing ink that you can get at most art supply stores, they use a brayer to roll the ink from the ink plates ( plexi-glass) to the print foam. The rolling of the ink can be the most desirable part of the printing process especially for ages 2 and 3.  We used red, pink, silver and gold ink so that no matter what image is drawn into the foam they look like Valentines.

 Look at all these lovely Valentines. Some kids worked really hard, printing one for all 25 kids in their class.

After printing for most of the day, we ended the day with a treat box making workshop. These are perfect for little treats for your little ones. 

We offered many different types of materials for making these, ribbon, paint, buttons, jewels, little animals, fabrics and decorative papers. 

With our workshops we encourage kids and parents to work together to create. It is so rewarding to watch the families interact in such a enriching way. 

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!!!!!