mardi 29 avril 2014

A Week in English

Kids Create spent the first week of vacation doing a five-day English workshop. Each day had a theme: animals, books, art, sports, and food. Keep reading to find out what we did each day!

Monday: Animals

On Monday, we learned the names for a bunch of different animals (everything from cat and dog, to elephant and tiger, to shark and seahorse) and the sounds that they make. Some sounds were easy to make (woof! roar!) and others were much harder (like the elephant). We read some books about animals, like a story about how the zebra got his stripes, and a story about Lyle the Crocodile, who lives in New York City. We also searched for animals in a special spot-the-animals book, and practiced counting in English. At the end of the day, we all picked our favorite animal and made little habitats for them.

Tuesday: Books

We love to read at Kids Create, so we read some classic English picture books together. First, we read Cat in the Hat and watched a video version of it. Then we read Swimmy, a story about a clever fish, by Leo Lionni. We loved his illustrations, so we took a break from reading to create pictures of fish just like his:

For our last book, we read Harold and the Purple Crayon, a classic about a boy who uses a crayon to go on all kinds of adventures. Luckily we had a supply of purple crayons, so we tried going on crayon adventures too! Finally, we were so inspired by all these famous books, that we finished class by writing our own books. Topics ranged from mermaids to Star Wars!


Wednesday: Art

On Wednesday, we put on our smocks and studied some art. We kicked off class with Andy Warhol and each colored a soup can to create a colorful pop-art installation. We also learned a little bit about his life and artistic influence.

As artists, we also made self-portraits. Can you spot who's who in these drawings?

We also reviewed some famous art collections, from the Tate Modern in London to the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. We learned the colors in English and some other art-related words (paint, draw, sculpture, etc.) so we could talk about all the art we were seeing. Then we played a fun art memory game.

Finally, it was time to pick up our paintbrushes and make our own masterpieces. Watch out, Picasso!


Thursday: Sports

After a day in the artist's studio, we wanted to get out and stretch our legs, so we learned about popular American sports: baseball, basketball, football, and ice hockey. We learned some vocab words for each sport (ball, bat, base, hoop, shoot, touchdown, puck, goal, etc.), and watched some videos of each sport. We especially liked a clip from the movie Air Bud, where a beautiful golden retriever dog helps a boy play basketball. Armed with our new sports terminology, we read two books: Go, Dog, Go and Hop on Pop. There were lots of athletic action verbs in those books! Finally, we each made our own jerseys out of felt with our name and number on them. Go team!

Friday: Food

For many of us, Friday was the best day because it was all about FOOD. At the very beginning of class, we measured out some ingredients for mac and cheese. We learned the English words for cheese, flour, salt, pasta, macaroni, and so on, and carefully helped each other measure the right amounts. Then we headed to the kitchen to mix them all together on the stove (very carefully!) and put our mac and cheese in the oven. While that was baking, we went back to the classroom to go over some food words on flashcards, tell each other about our favorite foods (lots of cheese and cake discussion!), and read some books about food, like In the Night Kitchen and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. 

At last, it was time to eat the mac and cheese! We mixed up a quick salad to go with it, and sat down for lunch together. 

All-in-all, a fun week of English vacation!

Easter in Los Angeles

From San Francisco, we drove south along the Pacific coast to Los Angeles, city of angels and movie stars. On Monday, we made our own Hollywood Walk of Fame:

Paul traces his hands for his Hollywood square.

Our Walk of Fame!


 On Wednesday, we took some inspiration from the film studios and wrote our own screenplays in English. Here we are making some sets and props:


Theodore and Jean performed a moving death scene for us:


Philippe and Viktor put together a science fiction story about a giant rabbit who invades Earth (on-theme for Easter!):





The rest of the week, we celebrated Easter in Los Angeles by making Easter basket cards. We used markers and colorful paper to make the basket, some eggs, Easter bunnies, and of course some Easter chocolate too.


At the end of the week, we said goodbye before the Spring break. Hope you all enjoyed your vacations!

mercredi 16 avril 2014

Superheroes in Paris

Hi everybody !

Well, it's spring vacation in Paris until April 28th and if you need a fun idea for an outing, check out 


at the Mona Bismarck American Center for Art and Culture

34, avenue de New York 75116 Paris, France
+33 (0) 1 47 23 38 88
Exhibition opening hours
Wednesday through Sunday from 11 am to 6 pm
Closed on holidays: April 20, May 1, 8 and 29, June 8.
Exceptionally closed on June 5th
Metro: Alma-Marceau, Iéna, Trocadéro
RER: Pont de l’Alma
Bus: 72, 63, 92, 32, 82

http://monabismarck.org/?lang=en


Our Brownies loved it !




dimanche 6 avril 2014

I Left My Heart in San Francisco...

California, here we are! We were really excited to arrive in San Francisco, with it's famous hills, charming cable cars, and of course the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge. Here are some the sights we saw:


For a guide book, we consulted Miroslav Sasek's beautifully illustrated San Francisco, which we all read together. We were especially impressed by the pictures of the zoo and of San Fran's iconic Chinatown.

Drawing the Golden Gate Bridge

Another thing we were looking forward to in San Francisco was the food. There are so many excellent restaurants there and such a wide diversity of cuisines. To prepare ourselves to read the menus, we learned a bunch of food words: chicken, fish, strawberry, bread, cheese, tea, coffee, cake, cookies, chips, and more!


On Wednesday we wrote little skits centered around food. Here we are looking at all the foods:


A skit about a family going grocery shopping together:


A skit in which a customer orders a hamburger with all the toppings:


Thursday's class unwittingly wore matching outfits for our San Francisco tour. They send their love though!


After we learned some food words, we made drawings of our favorite foods. Here we are on Friday trying to decide what we like to eat the most:



Next week we leave the foggy shores of Northern California and head down to Hollywood. See you in the Hills!