Session 1: Magic Mornings Art Shows

This morning was the last morning of Session 1 here at Summer Spree! All of the groups were busy preparing for their families to come hang out during the Art Show, which happens at the end of every session. Groups display all of the art they've been working on all session in their classrooms and their families get to come in and go from room to room looking at all the campers' art.

Red Group

I visited the Red Group first, busy rehearsing some songs to perform for their parents at the end of the morning.

Red Group practicing their Hula Song

Next they sang One Direction's "You Don't Know You're Beatiful," so fun!

 After their rehearsal, Zayna got all of her artwork together and posed for a picture. Each of the children in the Red Group used recycled materials to make a number of projects: a fairy house out of 2-liter soda bottles, tissue paper, and various decorations, complete with clothespin fairy; castle out of recycled blocks, tubes, cones, and Popsicle sticks; and a treasure box from an old cigar box decorated with buttons, sequins, glitter, and their name spelled out in Scrabble Letters.

Zayna and her sister pose with all of Zayna's artwork from Session 1!

Orange Group

Orange Group was up next, and they had all their work on display: from handprints, to cupcakes, to watercolors, fairy houses, fish, and splatter paint, the Orange Group was busy busy busy this session!

Handprints Galore! with their Ceramics projects, cupcakes, and fairy houses in the background.

Sarah helping the kids find their artwork on display.

Ben posing with his watercolor and pastel underwater scene.

Jack and Ben checking out their projects from Ceramics.

Yellow Group

Upstairs, back in the main building, the Yellow Group was calmly eating their customary last-day Freeze Pops and waiting for their families to arrive. The remaining members of the group were happy to jump up and pose with their big project for the session, turning the back corner of their classroom into the Five Layers of the Ocean. Each camper made a big fish to hang in front of the ocean they painted together to look like the fish were swimming. Also notice the coral off to the left for which they rolled up paper, painted and decorated it to hang off of the wall. Great work, Jenna!

Yellow group standing in their ocean!

Green Group

The Green Group was hard at work making final touches to their pirate ships and ocean scenes when I caught up with them. They were passing the time with some drawing and coloring while Josh set up their big collaborative project for the Session: a Log Flume. 

Boys of the Green Group drawing Pirate Scenes.

Josh putting final touches on his groups Log Flume, where the blue paint is meant to look like water, and marbles are meant to be the logs.

A log (marble) is dropped from the top of the flume...

...and out it comes into the bucket at the bottom!

some samples of the Green Group's art! Turtles, and Pirates, and Sail Boats, Oh My!

Turquoise Group

The Turquoise Group was also very busy this session, setting up different parts of their classroom to look like parts of the natural water cycle. They had an ocean, and rainclouds, as well as other walls displaying their art. Their ocean scene looked especially cool with natural light shining through their tissue-paper stained glass window made to look like the ocean.

"ocean" and "ocean floor" complete with underwater creatures made from clay  (Closer view Below)

Turquoise Group busy hanging up their rain clouds and putting finishing touches around the room ...

Purple Group

The Purple Group (more like the Purple Duo, of Vera and Amelia) had all their artwork on display across their tables in their classroom. Because their group was so small, they were able to make a number of ceramic pieces as well as watercolors on which to display them, and more. Vera was very proud of the doll and horse scene she set up on her side of the table, during which the doll is actually an artist herself!

Vera's with her side of the table!

Claire, in doll form, with dress custom decorated by the girls.

Amelia with her favorite piece of art!

So far, Summer Spree Magic Mornings have been amazing! Full of art, fun, some silliness, and a whole lot of creativity! Magic Mornings starts again after the long weekend, with Session 2 at 9 a.m. on Monday, July 8th!

Session 1: Preparing for the Art Shows

Moving inside, the Red Group showed some of their artwork! They made these Fairy Houses (below) out of recycled 2-Liter soda bottles, tissue paper, and mod-podge, and decorated them with all sorts of glitter and flowers.  

4 of the Red groups fairy houses!

Lily playing with her fairy and her house.

Back outside of Jenn's room, I ran into the Turquoise group hard at work on their ceramics projects. They were making turtles out of clay, and using big lace doilies to get a turtle-shell design, before firing and painting their creatures. They also learn how to use tools that sculptors rely on frequently, like clay knives, wires, rolling pins, sponges, and other materials that give the clay texture.

 After this ceramics lesson, I caught up with the Purple group, our most intimate group this session, where campers Vera and Amelia were putting some final touches on projects they will display in their art show.

Vera paints a raincloud as Amelia helps hang artwork from the ceiling.

Amelia working with watercolors for the art show.

Session 1: Outdoor Fun!

With all this rain we've been seeing, the garden has been soaked, but that hasn't stopped Nancy and the kids from getting outside and digging in the dirt or playing in the yard. The Red and Orange groups were outside this morning with Nancy, some running in the yard with butterfly nets, others planting or bug-searching in the garden.

Nancy Long with friends from the Orange Group, Jack and Ben in the garden.

Jack was very excited to show me this creepy crawler he found in the mud!

Members of the Red Group on the chase! There are butterflies to be caught!

Zayna shared an umbrella with Lucas when the wind blew rain water down from the trees. Too cute!

There's nothing like a bunch of kids running around outside, having a ball, to brighten up any rainy day!

Session 1: Musical Afternoon

As I left the Yellow Group and walked toward my laptop to write this post, I heard lots of little signing voices coming from the ballroom. Investigating, I made my way in to find the Sarah's and their Orange group in the middle of Music and Songwriting, having a blast.

Pauline, our outstanding music teacher/story teller this session, engaged all of the kids in the cultural stories that went along with songs about pulling wheat from the group and making it into bread. They quickly picked up hand motions, clapping, and lyrics that accompanied a story about a grandmother and her grandchildren baking together. Another song they learned was written with the help of the Spanish language and Puerto Rican students from Philadelphia Schools Pauline has visited. The Orange Group learned the melody and positive message of peace while welcoming others into their metaphorical home and clapping along to these catchy melodies.

Boys of the Orange Group pull wheat to make bread.

The boys stand up to sing "Come and to my house and sit at my table, Come into my house I'll make you a feast." to the girls of their group. 

Pauline relayed messages of peace, love, and friendship with the different songs, adding different words, hand motions and finally instruments each time they sang the songs together. Young children have been known to get easily antsy, but in Pauline's music special, they are sad to leave the ballroom.

Session 1, Friday: Sculpture Challenge

This afternoon at Spree, I caught up with Jenna's Yellow Group. They have not forgotten about their underwater books from earlier in the week, but their classroom has gained some new wall decor, and these kids are really getting their creative juices flowing! In addition to working on their books, I came to check in on the Yellow Group as they were starting a Sculpture Challenge.

The supplies for this challenge were every color of construction paper imaginable, scissors, and glue sticks. Campers were asked to think about all of the different ways they could change the construction paper: folding, cutting, ripping, gluing, rolling. The Challenge? Change the paper and combine at least 6 different pieces to make a new sculpture. Eventually, Jenna said, they will work with these methods and make 3D Sea Anemones.

The Yellow Group brainstorms ways in which to alter the construction paper.

And they're off! The Sculpture Challenge is underway. Can't wait to see how these Anemones turn out!

Session I, Day 2: Specials Around CAC

All the kids at Summer Spree love working on the fabulous art projects our teachers design for them, but the CAC also has special time set aside for things like outdoor obstacle courses and Lego Building.

This afternoon, Josh set up an obstacle course outside with colorful cones, a rope ladder, and mini hurdles for the kids to get some energy out weaving in and out of the cones, quick-stepping through the rope ladder, and jumping over the hurdles.

Above & Below: Pied-Piper Josh leads the Red Group through  the  rope ladder and over the hurdles of the course!

I found the Orange Group in the LEGO room beating the heat today with their teachers, Sarah and Sarah. These six- and seven-year-olds love getting out their architectural creative energy with the CAC's huge collection of LEGO's! This room gets tons of use every summer!

Seasoned Summer Spree Campers Finian (Above) and Dean (Below) were excited to show off their LEGO-skills for the camera. 

Session 1, Day 2: Afternoon Watercolors

This afternoon at the CAC sees the Yellow Group and the Teen Studio practicing their watercoloring skills!

Jenna and her yellow group are hard at work on their underwater books. They've made the outside covers from cardboard, fabric, buttons, and other materials, and will fill the pages with their artwork of undersea scenery. Today, I caught up with them while they sketched out scenes and began to fill them with watercolors.

The Yellow Group working with watercolors to make pages of their Ocean Books.

Jane (Yellow Group) getting inspired to sketch her coral reef page .

The teen studio group was hard at work upstairs this afternoon learning all about watercolors, getting some peaceful practice in the third floor studio. Today they got some good advice to "Leave well enough alone" rather than go overboard with additions to their artwork.

Teens get creative with their color gradients.

Can't wait to check out those books, Yellow Group, and these teens are sure to do some beautiful work!

Session I, Week 1: R.O.Y.'s Fun First Morning

The three youngest Summer Spree morning groups, Red, Orange, and Yellow, are off to a great start this morning! All three groups have jump-started art projects and special classes, and have been learning a lot already about our water systems.

Jenn's Red Group, the youngest of the kids at Summer Spree, were already very excited about art camp when I ran into them on the way back to their home base from the garden. They'd just come from digging out the beginnings of the trench along the edge of the garden, and were pumped to get into their cool room and take a group photo with Jenn and their helper, Marisa.

2013's first Red Group. Hard to get five 4-yr-olds smiling at once! (Sorry, Jenn!)

Members of the Red Group cooling off in the AC from the 90 degree heat with some creative necklace making. These big beads are perfect for their little hands!

A year older than the Red Group, I found the Orange Group, with teacher Sarah and assistant Sarah, working on some water colors in their classroom. Using masking tape to secure the paper to the table, the kids did not want to stop mixing and matching colors. The boys would only stop for a second to smile at the camera before, "Sarahhh! Can I have some more paperrr?"

Sarah's Orange Group getting their creativity flowing with some water colors.

The Yellow Group is planning a big project this week to turn a corner of their classroom into the 5 layers of the ocean. When I came in to see them, their teacher, Jenna, was reading them a book called Octopus Alone, about an Octopus travelling around his home near the coral reef. Jenna was getting the kids started thinking about the animals under water such as the Octopus' jellyfish and seahorse friends. After the story, they began to create their own coral reef scenes first in pencil then brought to life with watercolors on watercolor paper, a new material to the children in the yellow group.

Above & Below: Yellow Group outlines their coral reef artwork in pencil.

All three groups and teachers are off to an awesome and art-filled first morning! Keep checking the Summer Spree Blog for updates on the Red, Orange, Yellow, and older groups as the sessions go on!