Glitter & Razz Blog

Human pyramid

Glitter & Razz Dramatic Playspace is filled with creative energy today.  Kids were running lines, rehearsing choreography for a scarf dance, and blocking their scenes on stage.  Move & Groove director, Sophia taught kids the difference between being a “strong base” or a ” flyer” in a human period.  All the kids were excited to try out the different roles.  “I WANT TO FLY!” was exclaimed more than once throughout the morning.  I watched them take turns supporting each other, falling safely on the mat and doing their best to stay up.  This is what being bold and brave is all about.

Guest artist, Martin Brecht, returned today for more magic messes.  The kids have LOVED creating art with Martin.  First, they brainstorm all the pieces they’d like to include in their setting- a Queen’s castle on the Moon.  Then, they decide which part to make alone or in small groups.  Martin brings out tons of art supplies, encourging them to use recycled materials in their work.  “Who used a splattering technique in their work today?” he asks. “Who painted with a toothbrush? Who has a celebration of something they made?” Kids are supported to hang up their projects on the back wall, slowly developing a back drop for the play.

Painting a Galaxy

Reading through the script

big, bold energy in Kids Choice

It’s clear that our bold, brave campers are feeling safe enough to bring more of themselves to camp.  While yesterday, it seemed that everyone was on their best behavior, wanting to make a good impression- today they are comfortable enough to test our group agreements, show their silly sides and practice navigating conflicts with their new friends.  All of this is good news.  It means that we can begin the real work of camp…exploring how to be our boldest, bravest selves while working together as an artistic community.  A couple kids were supported to use “I” statements in the “Peace Place” to express their feelings.  Others practiced quietly moving to another part of the room if they were being distracted by the person next to them.  As teachers, we saw more vulnerability today and had a chance to be firm and flexible- doing our best to blend clear boundaries with the nurturing that these young artists need.

our ensemble

We also began to go into our theme and the children reflected on what brave means to them.  Jasper offered that being brave is “being brave when you go into the darkness.”  “Bravery means that you are going to a scary place by yourself and you’re not afraid, ” said Ivy.  Each day, these answers from community circle questions are typed up and posted in the room.  They will turn into lines for the play and shape the lessons and projects we plan throughout camp.

Even though Summer Camps just began, we are already announcing our Fall 2010 Programs!  We will be back in September with some popular favorites as well as some new programming.  And, because we REALLY want you to join us, we are offering 10% OFF camps and classes when you register before August 31st!* Some of the classes are open for registration right now and others will be open by Monday.  There is a lot to put on the website so your patience is much appreciated!

Go Girls! Afterschool Club is back on Thursday afternoons and better than ever.  The class has been increased from 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours per week.  Each girl will get snack each day, as well as her own t-shirt and journal.  Wanna know more about the Go Girls! Afterschool Clubs?  Maybe even find out how to bring a Club to your school or community? Check out the premiere of our Go Girls! video created by filmmaker, Angie Tures, and starring our very own Go Girls!, Ajna Singh and Sara Silverstein:

Itty Bitty Theater Workshops are back on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and will be taught by none other than Glitter & Razz co-founder, Allison Kenny. Allison, who is an expert in expressive arts and dramatic play for young children, has been on a hiatus from Glitter & Razz this year where she was focused on her work as a play therapist in the Floor Time method, working with children in the autism spectrum. She also started, grew, and managed a full program for children, youth, and families at a progressive church here in Oakland. I am so glad that she is back, I can hardly tell you.

Play in a Day Camps start up again with the first one of October 8 (followed by Oct 11 and Nov 11).  In Play in a Day Camps, kids ages 4-10 create, practice, and perform their very own play in just 1 day!

School Break Camps: When you just can’t the days off of work, send your children to us for creative learning and social/emotional exploration.  Our 2-Day Thanksgiving Gratitude Camp is Nov 22-33.  There will also be 2 sessions of Winter Holiday Camps – December 20-23 and December 27-30.

And the Fall is not just for kids!  This fall, we are hosting Family Workshops as well as workshops just for adults!

Family Workshops:

• Saturday, October 2 | 10:00am – 12:30pm | What’s Goin’ On Family Camp with Kelly Takunda Orphan Martinez | Spend time with your kids learning songs and dances from around the world.  Don’t tell me you don’t want to bang on a drum or 2.
• Saturday, November 6 | 10:00am – 12:30pm | Go Girls! For All with Lynn and Allison | You begged us to do it again and we are…gladly!  This Mother/Daughter event gives you the opportunity to play and create together as you explore the magic and power of being girls (and women).
• Saturday, October 23 | 10:00am – 6:00pm | BRAND NEW | Play in a Day for Adults and Kids | Have you ever wanted to be in a play but didn’t think you had the time?  Well, this in-depth theatrical experience, directed by me (co-founder, Lynn Johnson), is a rigorous and lovingly full day where we will explore an area of content, create an entire play from scratch, rehearse it, and then perform it that evening for a full audience.  We will be joined by professional actors and other artists to help us create our masterpiece.  The evening will include food, fun, and discussion and will change the way you think of “community theater.”

Adult Workshops:

• Make a Play. Change the World: A Professional Development Series for Education & Youth Work Professionals - 2 Sessions, Saturday August 21 and Saturday September 18 – Learn more about how to use theater and the arts to enhance students learning, build peaceful classroom, and make positive change in your communities and beyond.*The 10% Off Summer Sale does not apply to this Series.  However, the price is very right.  Just $6o for each 3 hour session or $100 when you register for both.
• Acting Class for the Wayward Revolutionary – 6 week session begins September 22 – You know you have an itch that needs to be scratched.  You are feeling less than creative.  Less than connected.  It’s time to take an Acting Class and learn the skills to change yourself and the world.  Yes, I am teaching it!

Dinner & A Show: A Parent’s Night Out | For those times when you just want a Saturday nigh (for once) to have a romantic dinner or drinks with friends.  Drop your kids off with us!  We’ll stuff ‘em full of Zachary’s Pizza and make up a play that we will perform for you when you come back to pick them up (please, don’t forget to come back and pick them up).  The second Saturday of the month beginning September 11.

And finally, we will soon announce 3 events for the Fall.  Here is the sneak preview:

• Sunday September 26 | Free Glitter & Razz Make a Play Event | Haven’t yet experienced the magic and power of Glitter & Razz? This will be a great time to try us out.
• Sunday October 31 | 3rd Annual Halloween Concert at Glitter & Razz | Artist to be announced.  But, whoever it is, come in costume prepared to dance your buns off!
• Saturday December 11 | The Bay Area Wide Go Girls! Event | The final culmination of the Go Girls! Fall Session where all Bay Area Go Girls! Afterschool Clubs come together to share their original plays with each other and the community.

It was the coolest thing ever when I walked into What’s Goin’ On Camp right before lunch to see this happening right outside our door:

The UMOJA group (our 8-10 year olds) are working on the music for the song Ancestor’s Breath by Sweet Honey in the Rock with Kelly. But, it didn’t stop there. I walked inside the space to find the rest of the UMOJA group working with youth intern, Morgan, on another part of the song:

And then…yes, there is more…I went upstairs to Masankho’s dance class where the PAZ group (6-7 year olds) were practicing their dance to the same song.

The final performance of this camp is Friday, July 1 at 12noon where all of these pieces will come together. What is so incredible to me about this program is the level of artistic rigor that these elementary school age children experience. They are being treated by their teachers as real, working artists. Sure, they get a lot of breaks. A lot of time just to laugh and play and be with their friends…all of which is important. But, they are also learning to be part of something much bigger than themselves. They are learning what it means to try something, to look at it, and then to try again. And each individual kid is learning that they are and have something of value to contribute to this artistic community. That, even at 6 or 8 or 10, they have beautiful stories, voices, ideas, and images, to share with the world.

If I had to pick the one thing that matters most to human happiness, I would say that our relationships with other people matter more than anything else.

Step #2 in Christine Carter’s Raising Happiness is entitled “Build a Village.”  This chapter breaks down why it is so important to your child’s overall health and happiness to be positively connected to other people and how you can help him/her be that way.

Inspired by this chapter and my own personal experience working with hundreds and hundreds of likable and unlikable kids, I care share with you the top 5 things you will want to teach and practice with your kids to make sure they have the social and emotional skills to be liked by and connected to other kids.  And yes, it can be taught!

1) Active Listening
Listen when someone is talking.  Make eye contact.  Ask the other person questions.  You know for yourself that you feel more important, valued, and appreciated when someone is really listening to you.  When you are with someone who makes you feel appreciated, you will most likely like that person, right?

I think this is the number 1 thing we can do to teach kids to be connected to other kids because it is so easy to teach.  All it takes is practice.  The reason why I see so many kids who don’t do this is because we don’t expect that they can.  But they can.  Even 4 year olds can.  I take that back…ESPECIALLY 4 year olds can.  4 year olds are just coming to the time in their lives when they understand the power and appeal of friendships.  Developmentally, they are shedding their completely self-centered ways and starting to believe that other people can actually be interesting.  This is the perfect time to teach them and practice active listening:

• Insist that your kids give you eye contact when you are talking to them.  Here’s the trick – make sure you give them the same courtesy.
• Coach them through a 2-sided conversation.  For example, “I just asked you how your day was and I listened to your answer.  Now, it’s your turn to ask me how my day was and you will listen to my answer.”  Here’s the trick – don’t talk too long.  They are only 4.  They will get bored.
• Celebrate them every time they are actively listening.  “Thanks so much for listening to me talk about my day.  I feel very special when you do that.”

2) Self Regulation
We know that kid that gets angry and frustrated all the time and takes it out physically and verbally on other kids.  We also know that kid who cries and whines all the time whenever something doesn’t go her way.  These kids are hard for other kids to be around.  For obvious reasons.  These kids need to learn how to control their feelings in healthy ways.  The main way for you to help them is for you to make it VERY clear, on a consistent basis, that their behavior is not okay.  Check out this cool article from PBS Kids that says, “From the start, set clear limits and provide simple explanations (”No biting. That hurts mommy.”) As your baby grows, try to be consistent as you express expectations and set rules or consequences.”

At Glitter & Razz, we begin each class and camp with a community circle where the kids have to experience a moment of silence together.  We talk about how this is the time for them to transform their free play energy into focused energy.  It’s a very successful practice.  Most of the time kids take this moment very seriously.  However, when they don’t, it’s a wonderful opportunity for modeling and reinforcing self-regulation.  The rule is to be silent.  That’s the boundary.  Any behavior outside of being silent is not tolerated.  So, when someone laughs or makes a silly noise or even breathes too hard, we either start the moment of silence again or we ask that person to step out of our circle.  This is teaching the kid that it is up to them to take care of themselves and that certain behaviors are appropriate at certain times.

3) Navigating Conflict
Kids will fight.  As Christine Carter points out, kids are more comfortable with conflict than adults are.  Conflict is not a problem.  Conflict is a good thing.  The problem is that kids have not yet learned how to work through conflicts.  It’s our job as adults to teach them.  People who can work through conflicts in peaceful, loving ways are well connected people, indeed.

We use a Peace Place to work out conflicts.  It’s a dedicated part of the room where a script hangs on the wall that helps kids work through conflicts.  It’s a classic I-Statement: I Feel___When You___I Need You to___and I promise I will____.

Read this to learn more about what Christine says about this.

4) Kindness
As a transition from “Kids Choice”, our free time time, to focused class time during our camps, we often give the kids an opportunity to share a celebration of someone who was kind to them during  Kids Choice.  We hear stuff like, “I celebrate Sarah because she played with me” or “I celebrate Ben because he helped me clean up the animal toys even though he wasn’t even playing with them.”  Kids appreciate kindness and generosity and want to be around it.  Christine writes in her book, “My guess is that most parents hope their children are kind, but few deliberately teach kindness in conscious ways.”  But, like all of  these skills, kindness can be taught if we as adults are modeling kind behavior ourselves, telling our kids what it looks like, and celebrating them when they do it.  “Raising Happiness” is chock full of ways to teach kindness to our kids.  Here is another good article I found online.

5) Play and Have Fun
Kids like kids who they can play with, have fun with.  This may seem like a no-brainer but we are seeing more and more instances of kids who just don’t know how to play.  We know the story.  Modern kids are overscheduled, have a lot more distractions, spend less time outside, spend more time isolated from other kids, etc. etc. etc.  My 8 year old niece once told me about a girl in her class at school that she didn’t like very much because, “she has no imagination!”

Kids, whose only real work IS to play, to make-believe, are coming to us at Glitter & Razz not very good at it.  When prompted to use their super power of imagination to make up stories or games or simply to play with wooden blocks or plastic animals during Kids Choice, we hear “I don’t know” or “what should I do right now” more often than feels natural. In these situations, our job as adults is not to tell them what to play.  That does not let them learn how to play.  My teachers and I just keep asking questions – questions that will inspire their creative muscles:

• Only you know what to do.  What do you think you should do right now?
• What does this block remind you of?
• What can you do with these blocks?
• What would happen if a zombie came in the room right now?
• What would happen if a zombie came into our story?

The play must come from them.  From their ideas and their imaginations.  The more they use their imagination muscles, the stronger they will be.  And the stronger they are at playing, the more fun they will be to the other kids.

This post is part of a series of posts as I read Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps For More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents in preparation of our event with the author, Christine Carter, PhD on March 20.  Click here for more information and to register for the event>>>

Tomorrow is it.  The last day.  It’s the last day of this camp.  It’s the last day of all summer camps in fact.  And I can’t believe the time has flown by so quickly.  And, for the last time this summer, we spent today getting ready for the “big show.”

A very informal poll has shown me that “doing the play” is the favorite part of camp for most Glitter & Razz campers.  Here’s what I mean…

And, let’s hear from a couple of boys…

To better prepare us for both practicing and performing this play we love so much, we played a focus game this morning where the kids had to put on their “focus goggles” (a phrase created on the spot by Maera, age 5) while we teachers did everything we could think of to try to distract them. It was quite successful, actually. Afterwards, Maya said, “even though I really wanted to look up, I didn’t!”

I guess we’ll see tomorrow if it made any difference.

Just 2 more things…I am not sure I gave the proper celebration of our youth intern, Nora.  She is such a gem with these younger kids.  So fun and so responsible at the same time.  I mean, just look at how much fun she is having in those pink gloves with our assistant teaching artist, Cinda.  Cinda, by the way, is also a superstar.  She drives up everyday from Santa Cruz and still has the best possible energy and attitude!  The aftercare she runs is like a masterpiece in and of itself.

And, speaking of masterpieces, I can’t wait until you see the books your creative kids have produced.  Not only are they imaginative and cool looking, it is also quite outstanding for this age group to have the focus to work on an intricate, multi-step project, over the entire week.  This project included drawing, printmaking, painting, collaging, and writing.

I guess those focus goggles really are working.