Glitter & Razz Blog

The kids are off and running with this week’s play!  We chose characters today by exploring all the possible creatures that would hang out in the locations we chose.  (Sure, they’ll allow elephants on an airplane- why not?) Then, we drank a magic potion that turned us into the characters we chose for the play.  The kids created lines and I helped them stage the first half of each story.  We practiced listening to the drum and narration to know when it’s our turn and using loud and proud voices on stage.  It’s exciting to see our ideas come to life!

We sang 2 new songs in Move & Groove that will add a sense of adventure to our final show.  We also got to paint yesterday’s play projects and begin painting artwork to hang as the backdrop for our play on Friday.  In closing circle, we celebrated our youth intern, Nora who has been with us for the past 3 weeks of Itty Bitty Camp.  Today was her last day- thanks for everything, Nora!  The kids thanked her for “holding my hand on the walk,” “helping so much” and “being a good friend.”

In Magic Messes, we got a chance to paint our sculptures from yesterday. We also did a brainstorm of things you might find at our story locations so we could decide what we needed to start creating for our set. Then the kids got right to it by covering a few huge pieces of paper with paint to be cut into backdrop elements for the show.

We are mid-week in the We Are Nature Camp.  This is the week where our Itty Bitties are using drama, dance, and visual art to explore the our human connection to the rest of nature around us.  At Itty Bitty Arts Camp, we start and end each day with a moment of silence while listening to a gong chime. In between those quiet moments, the place is humming with creativity!

So far, in Drama class with Cassie, we have learned how to share the stage and take turns speaking and moving together as a group. We have learned that “acting is doing;” that we have to share our bodies and voices to show (instead of tell) our story to the audience.  We also have used drama class to help us create our original story for the play.  We practiced doing things in different locations in nature.  This helped us brainstorm locations for where our play will take place.  They have created their own characters and found ways to connect them to other characters. The plays ROCK so far. The extreme level of energy translates well into our drama class and the campers are creating a great story full of creative ideas.

In Magic Messes class with Sophia, we ripped and pasted a mosaic self portrait of ourselves—which will be hanging up on display for all to see on Friday.  Our young artists made prints of leaves and explored what happens when nature and paint connect.  Instead of paint brushes, we used banana peels, twigs, ferns and all kinds of leaves.  These beautiful murals will be shaped into the backdrop for our play.

In Move & Groove, we are developing cool tricks with scarves and hula hoops to put into some dances for the show.  We have also created dances in 3 groups celebrating Earth, Air and Fire.  We’ve danced with scarves and veils, sung songs and made friends.  The kids have shared their ideas about what exactly nature is,  what we love about it,  and how humans sometimes harm it.  Next, we’ll explore what we can do to help solve these problems and put the good ideas they come up with into the plays.

We are not in class all the time, by the way.  Headed by Cinda and supported by the rest of our staff, Kiona and, youth intern, Nora, the kids have also enjoyed tons of free play time and rest time.  On our daily Neighborhood Walk, we have extended our nature them by practicing being observers of nature. We have seen so many things in our neighborhood that are also a part of nature. Sophia even found wild strawberries in a patch of ivy. We were all amazed by the nature around us.  We have even used many of the items we have found in our art making.

Each day, there is a question of the day.  Here’s just a peek of our conversations:

Monday: What is nature?

Nature is the whole world.     -TJ

Nature is plants.          -Luke

It’s somewhere where there is grass and stuff.         -Sasha

Nature is Stars.           -Penny

Nature is the sky.        -Olive

When nature comes apart it means plants are dying.           -Zachary A.D.

Trees. -Claire

Plants.             -Vivian

Nature is when people don’t make what is there.     -Luke

Nature is special.        -Mina

Trees are pretty.         -Gemma

Trees have leaves.      -Mozi

Nature is beautiful, cool, awesome, and interesting, and fun, and nice too!           -Zachary S

Beautiful.        -Mikayla

Flowers bloom.           -Jonah

Nature is soft.             -Lucy

Nature is very special and I like it ‘cause it’s part of the world. –Shoshana

Nature is far away, a long drive.        -Xavier

Nature is something, like a tree is nature and flowers.         -Kaia

Nature is anything that is anything.   -Chloe

Tuesday:  Why is nature important?

Because you don’t want to pick flowers which other people have planted. – Julia

You don’t want to pick flowers, sometimes they’re on trees. I’ve seen a magnolia tree with pink flowers. –Zachary A.D

Sometimes there’s pennies on the ground and you pick them up. – Jonah

Nature is important cause it helps people. Like the trees give fruit. – Penelope

Cause trees are paper. –Jonah

Cause it saves plants, grow food, and food grows on plants. –Claire

Nature is important because it is special. If there wasn’t, there wouldn’t be animals. And counting animals, people are animals, so we wouldn’t be here either. –Zachary S.

If there is no nature, animals can’t live.  –Ella

If there was not any nature you could breathe, neither be alive, neither be alive, neither have a mom or a dad. – TJ

Because then we won’t get to go camping. And there won’t be animals there won’t be plants. –Sasha

Because beaches are nature so people can live. – Zachary W

Nature is fun. It would be boring without nature. – Lucy

Because it gives us information on how it feels. – Mina

Because birds are nice and they make sounds like flutes. I don’t want birds to die. Nature is nice. – Gemma

I really like sparrows and larks and robins. I like the sounds they make. If there were no trees, we couldn’t breath.  – Luke

Without nature it would be cold. – Vivian

I think nature is important because water makes animals who can’t breathe out of water, be able to breath. Nature sometimes makes things grow. – Shoshana

Because birds like to live in trees and if they don’t they wont be happy. – Olive

Because trees give us paper, some people need to draw. – Xavier

Because trees give us water, sometimes your lips are dry and you want water. – Mikayla

If there wasn’t soil the plants couldn’t grow. – Mozi

I think that planting is important. – Kaia

Self-Portrait Collages that the Kids Made with teaching artist, Audette Sophia. They simply used ripped construction paper, glue sticks, and a lot of imagination. This is the epitome of the open-ended, creativity-based art activities we value here at Glitter & Razz. And the kids LOVED IT!

Superheroes and Shining Stars are back!  It’s August at Glitter & Razz and that means Itty Bitties – our week-long arts camps for 4-6 year olds.

Our Superstar team of teaching artists – Cinda, Cassie, Sophia, and Kiona – plus 2 youth interns, Nora and Talia, are leading the kids on an adventure of creating their very own play that accesses their own power to help save the world.  Today in Drama Class with Cassie, we talked about what makes a superhero? We went to the “superhero grocery store” and collected all the things superheroes do (because, as we teach, acting is doing).  We decided that superheroes help people, wear special costumes, have magical powers.  Of course, there are even super hero princesses.  After collecting all the things super heroes do, we created characters. This the first step in our play creation process and is exciting as the kids get to come up with their very own super hero. We practiced using our voices onstage and learned that we have to use a strong and loud voice to be heard. The kids are already experts at our super hero warm up!

In Move & Groove, our creative movement class with Sophia,  we played with generating movement and copying each others moves.  This copying was a great way to encourage shyer kids who couldn’t think of/share their own moves right away. There was a lot of shyness in Move & Groove in the beginning, but by the end of the day everyone had warmed up.  By the time we played some freeze dance with scarfs, you would have thought we knew each other all our lives!

Whew.  30 girls.  Ages 6-10.  7 hours.  And, it’s still going.  The few girls who are left in Aftercare right now are keeping themselves busy by playing Party Quirks.  And, with the help of the teenage youth interns and the popularity of Glee, they are singing songs from my youth at the top of their lungs.  The laughter and energy is totally infectious.

This is how the whole day has been.  Full of laughter and joy.  At the same time, it was the first day of camp so we also did a lot of sitting and talking.  It’s just how the first day is.  We have to set the structure and the tone of the camp.  “Here’s what we do here at Go Girls! Camp and here’s why we do it.”  You know, that kind of thing.

We started the day with our Community Circle and Expressive Arts class led by Allison.  “What does Expressive Arts mean?”  “It means that we can express our feelings.”  Bingo.  And that’s what the girls will do each day to set the tone of the day…express their thoughts and feelings surrounding the strengths and challenges of living as a girl in the world.  It began with our Way of Joy Chi Gung warm up.  Then, they crafted, through the art of collage, the journals that they will use throughout the camp.

Our Drama (taught by me, Lynn) and Art (taught by Martin) classes also introduced the idea that we are all unique individuals contributing our ideas and gifts to the group.  In Drama, we talked about the fact that we are a “collaborative ensemble” and how hard it can be to create one piece of art together.  Through games and some discussion, we practiced sharing one at a time, being noticed, and noticing what others are doing so that we can connect our ideas with theirs.  In Art,  the girls again shared their individuality through name paintings where they drew their names with white crayon and then painted around them with watercolors while they watched their names appear amidst the colors.  Like magic.  On Day One, we must always do activities where we give the girls a chance to show up and say, “This is me.  This is who I am and what I like, ” so that on Day Two, we can really dig into the process of sharing that individuality with the greater community.

The other major highlight of today was our Kidpower Workshop.  Erika Leonard from Kidpower has been so generous to share a mini-Kidpower with us 2 years in a row.  Today, like last year, she packed that hour with tons of useful skills for the girls about using strong and aware body language and words to set boundaries and stand up for themselves.  She taught the girls ways to honor their feelings while also being powerful in their interactions with others.

Kidpower Teenpower Fullpower International’s exceptional “People Safety” curriculum in an essential part of our Go Girls! Curriculum and we are very thankful for their permission to incorporate their language into our shows and videos. For over twenty years, Kidpower has been a nonprofit leader in empowering people of all ages and abilities to learn personal safety skills and build self-confidence. Visit www.kidpower.org or call 1-800-467-6997 Ext. 1# for information on their positive and practical workshops and educational resources.

Kidpower’s gift of their copyrighted curriculum, like all of Kidpower’s services, is a gift from those who came before. We at Glitter and Razz are proud to have joined Kidpower’s 1,000 Donors Campaign, and we encourage you to do the same. Whether you can give a few dollars or a lot, your gift counts! Donate by going to:https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=2854 or call the Kidpower office.

Finally, the girls learned their first song with our music director, Brendan.  It’s Martha and the Vandella’s Dancing in the Streets.  Brendan told them it was a song that was made in the 60’s and someone asked, “So, is it a hippy song?”  We all busted out laughing.  But, it wasn’t as funny as when we got to the lyric, “they’ll be swingin’, swayin’, records playin’” someone said, “oh yeah, a record is a black round thingy with a hole in the middle” and someone else yelled out, very enthusiastically, “My dad has one of those!!!”

Let’s pay a little tribute to Martha and the Vandellas:

Itty Bitty Quote of the Day: “Why is there so much having fun here?!?”

We have reached our last week of Glitter & Razz camp for the summer.  It’s been a long and GREAT summer and we are wrapping it up with our final Itty Bitty Arts Camp.  The theme…”Onceuponatime & Ever After.”  This is a fun one.  It’s a week where we are inspired by our favorite stories and books to create stories of our own.  As the week goes on, we will talk about what stories are, how they are structured, why they important, and what we learn from them.

Today has been a day a day of introductions.  In our Move & Groove (creative movement class) with the extraordinary teacher, Spring Berlandt, we played a lot of games that helped us learn each other’s names and explore different storybook characters with our bodies including Pegasus and Darth Vader.

Our Drama Classes with Cassie Powell are already beginning to create the plays they will perform at the end of the week.  Each creative kid was asked to think about their favorite stories and where those stories take place.  Then, they gave each other “tours” of those places on stage.  This was a great way to practice leading and following at the same time teaching young actors what a set is and how they are created on stage to help the enhance the story they are acting out.

Just a brief word about Cassie.  Cassie has been teaching with us since Dec 09 and she truly is a “creative genius.”  She is very successful in giving each kid an opportunity to contribute their own creative voice while at the same time, always insisting on a high standard of collaborative skills.  This is not an easy feat with this age group as they are just beginning to learn the skills associated with generosity, forgiveness, and peaceful conflict resolution.  Cassie will be moving down to San Mateo in the fall to be a full-time drama teacher during the school day (lucky them).  But she will be back for some of our Play in a Day Camps.  (If you know anyone in San Mateo, let us know.  We are working to hook up an afterschool class down there.)

In Magic Messes (our art class), Martin Brecht dove right in with having each kid create their own story books.  They talked about how books contain both words and stories and each kid, even the ones who can’t yet write, were supported to add at least some words to their books.  And there were, of course, lots of pictures.  Cool ones.  Today, they started with pencil but, knowing Martin, I am sure there is lots of color in store for tomorrow.

I definitely want to celebrate Sara, our Junior Junior Youth Intern today.  Sara might win the award for most Glitter & Razz camps attended (if we had that award).  She is almost 9 and was most recently in our Go Girls! Theater Camp.  Her moms really needed a place for her to be this week before school starts next week and asked of if we could take her.  We are so glad that we said yes.  Sara has been one of the best helpers we have had.  She knows exactly what her role is this week as she plays with the kids and helps the teachers hand out materials.  At Kids Choice, she was even witnessed coaching a couple of Itty Bitties through a dispute.  One of the kids even called her “teacher.”  Very cool.

Sara and Martin in conference during Magic Messes class

In addition to our classes, we were very lucky to be able to use the playground of our good neighbor, Rockridge Little School.  The school is on a break so our after lunch Kids Choice will be outside all week!  Hooray!

Another favorite time of day is storytime with our Assistant Teaching Artist, Cinda.  Today’s story was the very popular, “The Patch.” By the way, if parents ever want to come in and read a story to us during this time, you are very welcome.  Sign-ups are at the sign in/out desk when you come in.

"Please use nice words about your art because art has feelings too." -Martin to a 6 year old boy

I am delighted and honored to introduce you to our new visual art teacher, Martin Brecht.  Martin is an experienced educator, artist, and soccer fanatic originating from Pittsburgh, PA.  He began working with us for our summer camps 2009 after relocating from Brooklyn, NY.  He completed a New York City Teaching Fellowship in 2006, earning a master’s degree in Urban Education while teaching art at Public School 94 in the Lower East Side to students with autism and emotional disabilities. Currently, Martin works at Malcolm X Elementary School in Berkeley and volunteers any spare time coaching soccer at Oakland International High School with Soccer Without Borders.

Martin is a priceless addition to our Glitter & Razz family!   He will be teaching our first ever Magic Messes classes (for ages 4-10) on Saturday mornings at Glitter & Razz starting Oct 3.  He will also be leading a special 2-day workshop called Living Murals where elementary school-aged kids will tell their own visual stories of the Bay Area on the back wall of the Glitter & Razz stage!

What does Martin have to say for himself?

What made you want to become an artist?
In college I had to choose a major and my favorite class was art history. The next semester I signed up for Studio Art 101, declared my major, and committed to living the life of an artist. Additionally, my father was an art major in college but couldn’t finish and in some ways I felt like I was picking up where he left off.

Describe your art.
My paintings, printmaking, drawings, and murals are inspired by my work in arts education. I had little training before college so in many ways I learned about art by teaching it. After four years of teaching children with autism and emotional disabilities in one of New York City’s “persistently dangerous schools”, my art became chaotic, abstract, and colorfully obsessive. I feel I am at my best when I creatively combine a variety of mediums with the help of collage or digital technology.

Why is it important to you to work with children doing art?
I am lost as an artist without an art teaching gig. Most of my inspiration comes from working with children. Their experience of art is so raw and uncorrupted. Giving up on their dreams hasn’t even occurred to them yet and I make it habit to surround myself with people like this, no matter the age!

What made you want to work for Glitter & Razz?
I am learning to design and paint murals so making set designs for plays seemed like good practice. I also never went to summer camp as a child because my mom is a teacher and my sisters, brother, and I spent the summer with her at home. Part of me thought it would be fun to finally go!

Why do you like working as a teaching artist at Glitter & Razz?
I enjoy the endless creativity that comes with each group of campers. I also value the supportive, collaborative work environment that exists at Glitter & Razz. I am thrilled to be around such positive energy on a daily basis.

What’s next on your journey as a teaching artist?
First, I plan on formalizing our individual Magic Messes projects into more of a comprehensive curriculum for Glitter & Razz- oh and did I mention- I plan on teaching it! Next, I am coordinating a trip to Guatemala for the Spring to teach art and soccer to an indigenous Mayan community through a non-profit I volunteer with, Soccer Without Borders.

Anything else we should know?
Believe me (I am a teacher), I could go on and on….

Sign your kid up now>>>