The short duration Summer English course for 4 to 6 year old children (Days 3 and 4) - The 22nd and 23rd of July 2015

Amidst the rehearsals for Friday the children still had time to see a film in English based on a book we studied together and finish the new artistic works, which were slightly more difficult than the ones they were assigned to do during the first two days of the course.

 

They seemed quite happy and took advantage of the mid-morning break by jumping and swirling around the pole in the grassy courtyard of the Training Centre. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Painting book markers

Assembling wooden pieces to make a 3D monkey and a 3D helicopter

Making a meticulous stick on painting and trying to assemble wooden pieces to make a  wooden snake

Colouring children of the world

 

We tried for the tenth time to get a proper group picture that could be used for the certificate and we finally made it, once none of the previous photos looked good enough.


 

We finally took pictures of the completed artistic pieces, which the children were particularly proud of, whether they were the complicated wooden pieces or the stick on paintings.


Before heading back home the children who had been with me the previous year asked to watch the puppet animated version of "Peter and the wolf", which we partly watched before having had a discussion aorund the main aspects of Sergei Prokofiev's composition.

The Head of the Training Centre, who would not be in the following day to hand out the certificates despite being a fervent admirer of this type of activities (whose grandchildren have been attending), was exceptionally allowed into the classroom (Ana and I decorated with the children's photos, as well as their artisitic pieces) where the artistic exhibition would be held.

















I don't think words are necessary to describe how happy and surprised he was to see how hard the children had worked.









 

 

 

The short duration Summer English course for 4 to 6 year old children (Day 2) - The 21st. July 2015

Today was a fairly quiet day in which children finished learning the lyrics of one of the Nursery rhyme songs they'll be singing next Friday. We "read" a young readers' story about a blue elephant though the learning was focused on movement, prepositions and continuous forms.

 

 

Forty five minutes before the end of the class they went onto the artistic part of the room so as to finish yesterday artistic works on the theme of animals and initiate others onto the theme of children of the world, having painted, assembled 3D paper animals, made puppet like dolls, used both coloured sand and coloured dough

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The short duration Summer English course for 4 to 6 year old children (Day 1) - The 20th of July 2015

The Summer English course for my colleagues's four and six year old children and grandchildren started today and with it the anxiety on their and my part. Not knowing the children one is going to work with over a short period of time and having to achieve results for Friday, the closing day isn't easy.

I was happily surprised to find out I'd be having three of my former  and most "faithful" students, one of whom was the first one to arrive first thing of the morning.  

The  five new children got easily adapted with just one feeling a little bit tearful throughout the first hour, though they all soon felt at ease, particularly during the artistic activities and the puzzle making to reinforce the names of the animals in English that they had been taught.

Although only three of them managed to finish their Art projects for the day (once it was dependant on the degree of difficulty of the artistic endeavour) the others vowed to patiently wait for the following day to finish theirs.  

(To be continued)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Ama-San - Temporary photo exhibition by Cláudia Varejão at Museu do Oriente, Lisboa - The 19th of July 2105

Diving for algae, sea urchins, oysters and pearls has been an activity which women in Japan have been performing for over 2,000 years. The women who sometimes dive as deep as 20 metres without oxygen bottles and any other sophesticated breathing apparatus are known as Ama (which literally stands for women of the sea) and are able to sustain their breathing under water up to two minutes.

 

 

The temporary exhibition I ended up seeing is the result of two trips to the Ise-Shima peninsula in Japan, more precisely to the fishing villages of Wagu, Ijika, Oosatu and Toushijima where Cláudia photographed the Ama-San  and their ongoing activities in what can be considered a rather well documented ethnografic study.

 

 

 

Photographing small framed photos was rather difficult but I still managed to photograph some so as to share them with the online viewers.