Post 12: ReCreates first ever Summer Camp

This summer, ReCreate ran its first ever Summer Camp. The camp ran every day from 9.30-2.30 and so much fun was had. 11 children in total attended and each day, they discovered and explored new ideas and delved deep into their imaginations.

We began on Monday by looking at different printing and painting processes, using lots of colour we created a largescale abstract painting. We got our hands dirty and made a bit of a mess but it was all worth it! The painting was later cut up and used to make individual flags for everyone to take home.

On Tuesday, all the children designed and made their own puppet. They first had to think about what kind of character their puppet would be? Would they be friendly, angry, evil, mean, happy? What kind of facial features would they have? Smiles, moustaches, unibrows, twisted noses, big eyes, small eyes, one eye? We had great fun bringing our puppets to life and then of course, giving them a voice!

On Wednesday the children came up with lots of great ideas for 3D construction. With the Warehouse of Wonders at their disposal, there was no shortage of interesting and unusual materials. Fantastic creations were made including, robots, fairy houses, spaceships and all sorts of different animals, some real and some imagined! We also explored storytelling using the overhead projector. This was great fun. The children worked together to write their story and then produced a series of images using coloured cellophane and acetate which were passed through the light projector and enlarged onto the wall for all to see.

Cilllian from Dabbledoo visited on Thursday. This was, without doubt the noisiest day! Cillian spoke to the children about making music and making instruments and then the children spent the morning designing and making their very own music makers. Lots of drums and shakers were made, which were of course all very brightly painted and decorated, adding an individual mark to each instrument. Later on, Cillian showed the children how to play music together and make rhythm. They played along to lots of different musical styles including classical, polkas and jigs! We were all dancing our way home!!

Friday was the last and busiest day. We made our last visit to the warehouse where the children collected materials they needed for their final summer camp creations as well as making sure they had enough to finish off any projects from during the week. We also decided to have an exhibition of all the work and a small puppet performance for the parents and guardians. We spent the afternoon displaying our work and practicing our puppet shows in the puppet theatre before all the adults arrived. We were all super excited. The adults were very impressed with all the creations made during the week and they were very happy to meet all the different puppets.

The camp was so much fun, we have decided to run a Halloween Camp in October and have already begun making plans for next year’s Summer camp!