Elm Tree 2016 Day Five

Hi Again, Elm Tree Fams! 

To begin, we'd like to thank you for the wonderful week. We couldn't have asked for a kinder, more easy-going, creative group of Elmsters! All week, we kept hearing chimes of, "Everyone here is friends!" And we felt that way too! 

This morning, the kids had one thing on their minds: fairy houses! That and the stag beetle Hector found on the way to camp. Before hide-and-seek, we checked on the houses. At first we thought that fairies had come over night to take their houses away, but eventually we found them! We also got the chance to carefully examine Hector's beetle.  

Then it was off to our daily rounds of hide-and-seek!

After hide-and-seek, we walked to the Endale Arch to eat snack and write some poems! To get us in the mood, we read the book The Big Box by Toni Morrison. In this book, a bunch of kids have to live in a box due to general misbehavior. They break out eventually, but all Elm Tree Crew agreed that this kind of punishment is not cool. They book earned two thumbs up all around anyhow. I guess you can't go wrong with Toni Morrison! 

Since it was the last day of camp, we decided to write about memories! We read some poems written by other students in New York. All of these poems begin with the lines, "I remember," and contain a series of memories. After discussing the meaning of the word remember, we wrote our own! We didn't get a chance to take pictures of Elm Tree work today, but feel free to comment with a picture of your child's poem! 

After writing, we headed to the tunnel for some sidewalk chalk fun. The objective today seemed to be to flatten as much chalk as possible by filling in the hexagons on the sidewalk.

We wanted to walk to the museum before it heated up, so we headed out after our time in the tunnel. A lot of exhibitions were closed yesterday due to air conditioning problems, but luckily the exhibition we wanted to see, Disguise: Masks and Global African Art was open! This exhibition connects the work of twenty five contemporary artists with historical African masquerade. Before entering, we read the introductory sign and found out that in many cultures, putting on a mask is thought of as transformative and that the wearer actually becomes someone or something new. 

The exhibition consisted of traditional and non-traditional masks, photographs, video art, and installation art. The kids sat entranced in front of one piece of video art by Saya Woolfalk for about ten minutes. Find a spoken poem about the piece transcribed below! 

Life Products by ChimaTEK

Saya Woolfalk

With Rachel Lears

(Poem by Elm Tree 2016)

Two women are changing into colors

The women are different

The women are the same

It looks like bacon getting cooked with lots of sauce

She's feeling a little scared because she’s trying something that might make her invisible

She’s in her own mind

She’s in a different box

I would help them

They are trying to get more colorful

They can reach into colors

She’s discovering another place that is clean and magical

I see colors on her from her mouth

Her mouth is yellow

She's in her mind again

Her mind is a volcano

The sky is moving down, up, and back

Here are some more pictures of us exploring the exhibition!

The kids liked the exhibition so much, we stayed at the museum until noon! Then it was definitely time for lunch, so we walked over to Mount Prospect park and hunkered down in the shade. As we ate, Sally read us the book Life Doesn't Frighten Me At All by Maya Angelou and with illustrations by Jean Michel Basquiat. Then we talked about the things that do and don't frighten us. Here's the poem we wrote about it!

I’m Not Scared

Elm Tree 2016

I'm not scared of panthers

I'm not scared of sneaky cats

I'm not scared of big hungry wolves

I'm not scared of Mona

I'm not scared of butterflies

I'm not scared of ghosts

I'm not scared of flying tomatoes

I'm not scared of walking skeletons

I'm not scared of a canoe in a hurricane

I'm not scared of the cat that scratches me

I'm not scared of peanuts in a bag

I'm not scared of Star Wars

I'm not scared of no noggin

I'm not scared of the big marshmallow man on Halloween because I can bite into him and say yum

I'm not scared of owls in a cloud who say whooooo

After lunch we played a couple rounds of "come with me little fishies" and threw a ball around while Sally and Molly set up our project for the day--making masks!

Here's the smorgasbord of mask fixin's!

And here's what it looked like after we got started:

What a fun project!

We knew we had to play some more, so after finishing our masks, we headed to the playground. We were shocked that no one wanted to run through the sprinklers and also by the amount of energy your children have when it feels like it's 95 degrees out! Dang! 

Two water breaks and lots of chasing later, we headed back to the Grand Army Plaza to say goodbye. What a great week it's been! We can't wait to see everyone again next summer, and please keep in touch over the year! Elm Tree 2016 Forever!!!

<3,

Sally & Molly