arts and crafts

concentrating on her self portrait

On Thursdays, Abish and Lani join me to go to Puebla Christian School.  This is now the second year that I have taught elementary art with my own kids along for the class.  Abraham arrives at PCS about the same time we do, although he leaves for Puebla earlier in order to attend his Tae Kwon Do class.  While I teach the 5th and 6th graders in the hour before lunch, Abish and Lani sometimes stay with Abraham or Abish joins the class.  The class after lunch is with the 1st through 4th graders.  Lani stays with me while Abish goes with Abraham to the PE class that he teaches.  In the last hour, both kids are with me during Abraham´s second PE class.

Our kids thoroughly enjoy the chance to play at the school.  Both Abish and Lani are mostly outgoing, so they love the time spent during the lunch hour and after school with other kids.  Sometimes a young friend between them in age comes after school, and then the three of them run around happily.

In the art class, my goal is that the students learn they are capable of drawing.  It is obvious that not all are interested in the skill, but I want them to understand they can learn should they choose to.  We alternate doing pencil drawing techniques, generally from the book Drawing in the Right Side of the Brain, one week and then a craft the next.  The craft is based on some form of art from around the world, so we have done batik with crayon resist on paper, hojalata gel pen drawings on tin foil, and other ideas (usually pinterest inspired).  

In November, I also began teaching a drawing class at church after service.  The Dios es Amor students are teens or young adults, some of whom declared at the beginning that they didn´t think they would be able to learn to draw.  Hopefully they will be encouraged to see they can.

A few years ago, we started a craft and cooking time for teen girls in Huejo.  The class met once a week for more than year, and then the girls moved away.  After another year or so of no class, one of the girls returned to the neighborhood and asked if the class was still meeting.  I said we could start again, and we had two classes.  Again, the girls moved.  However, a couple months later, a neighbor girl who usually also comes to the Sunday kids´ club began to attend the Thursday evening class.  For awhile, she was the only one, but last week she invited a friend.  It looks as though they will both return this week.

Please pray that these activities would be of blessing for those who attend.