With this week of camp at an end we can go back and see what Camp Leo has managed to create! As mentioned earlier, this week was one for comic book making. Campers used imagination and their peers to come up with good stories, characters, and settings. By the end of the week every camper, from 6-12, could boast of having their own comic book.
These books are so extensive and detailed that they could be written about for days, but its much more impressive to see the actual pieces themselves!
COME ON DOWN! And welcome to Camp Leo's first Game Show MANIA! Tomorrow, Friday June 28th, when the campers arrive, they will be greeted with a transformed YMCA. Filled with prizes, "celebrities"and wacky challenges this menagerie of fun is all going to be based on the most iconic game shows.
In one room campers will test their skills at jeopardy. In another they really will see IF they are smarter than a fifth grader. And in the dance studio a version of the hit show The Voice will be in full swing!
Today at Camp Leo the campers had the eye-opening experience of attending a play. Directed and starred in by other Camp Leo members! In addition to the regular Lionville YMCA summer camps the YMCA also offers specialty camps. These camps, ranging from Sports, to Art, to Theater, and to Fashion, are a great way to let your camper explore something their passionate about.
Today campers got to see the first performance of the summer by the Camp Leo Theater Camp. The production, based on Cinderella, was a "punny" adaptation that had all the kids laughing. Here are some shots of the wonderful auditorium and set these summer campers were able to use!
You may have been wondering what your camper's have been working on this week in art. So far there have been no updates, no pictures. Well have no fear! Your campers are learning about an amazing art form; COMIC BOOKS.
If you want to talk to your kids about the history of comic books, then you have to start a while back: in 1842. Back then American presses published the first comic book prototype, a hardcover novel. From there comic books grew in popularity. First they reached the newspapers, a few decades later they took on mainstream publishing. In 1933 comics officially entered "The Golden Age", a time when super-heros ruled the skies and no evil lasted longer then five pages.
Fast forward a few years, and when talking about comic books in class the best way the camper's could relate was through the new Batman, Spiderman, and Superman movies. (Over a century of comics, pretty cool right?)
Once the campers figured out what a comic book was they were ready to go for it.
No one said making comics was easy though! Today we took time designing our setting and our characters. Some of the most memorable include an all out show-down between King Broccoli and King Celery on the Ketchup Sea; and a comic book explaining how squirrels grow bushy tails (by finding Golden Acorns of course!).
In the meantime if your camper is ready for some comic book mania heres a few links to help them out!
Today camp Leo campers discovered a dinosaur of the past that none of us could ever forget; film photography. If you happened to take a photo class any time before the early 2000s I'm sure you remember sitting for hours in the dark room, trying to crop a photo or darken the edges.
Film photography is still beautiful, but I'm sure we are all thankful that we don't have to leave our negatives at CVS overnight.
The irony of all of this is, film photography has now become even more of an art. Camp Leo camper's got their first real experience with film photography today when the developed sun prints.
Sun prints are a basic form of photography developed in 1842 by Sir John Herschel. Little has changed since then. The way cyanotypes work is by developing a negative (caused by a form placed on the contact sheet) being transposed by UV rays. Or in other words, the sun colors things in.
Since this process can be confusing campers worked small-scale at first, on small pieces of paper. They created silhouettes and began to understand the fundamentals of that mysterious thing "film photography".
The images below are some examples
Later this week campers will be making several large-scale versions of these!
Whether your sitting at dinner, or
driving in the car, you may be looking for something creative to talk to your camper about. So why not talk about the art of masks?!
Masks have been in existence before the Stone-Age era and have been vehicles for theater and performance since their invention. Masks can have any number of features or exaggerations and
have complex meanings. Interestingly, masks are an art form that is universal.
Even before another human connection every continent has had a form of masks in their
history.
Masks have inspired most modern
artists, including the great master Picasso, and were arguably the inspiration for abstract art).
The masks Camp Leo’s campers have
been making this week are most similar to traditional African performance
attire. In African history masks often represent animals, key features in
African mythology, and are incorporated into performances of protection.
To learn more about African art
forms and masks please visit the links below!
A video of an African cultural masked performance:
One of Pablo Picasso's earliest abstract pieces (and inspiration):
If you are also interested in
seeing some of these works yourself Philadelphia has one of the richest
collections of African cultural works in the now public Barnes Collection!
This week Camp Leo has been working
non-stop on this week’s theme: The Mighty Jungle!
Campers have Zoo passports; they’ve
each mastered charades of the animal kingdom, and have got to be impressive animal-callers.
In Art class this week the campers have been
working on animal masks. These masks are impressive works designed by the
campers, painted by the campers, and as of today; embellished by the campers.
It may be a few days before these
masks are finished, so in the meantime ask your camper about his or her project
and how they think its going!
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Just finished with this weeks
Safari! Here’s some of the creatures roaming the Zoo YMCA!
Today our youngest campers joined
in with the thousand year old tradition of making wishes. Using designs by a
contemporary installation sculpture, working with the image of birds, campers
created their own paper avian friends. Each of these birds were created by one
member of the Panther and Tiger packs. Each is part of a tradition based on the
ancient Native American folklore of the Thunderbird. The idea is that each bird
represents a child’s wish. Some of the camper’s even decided to write wishes
inside their creations.
One of the YMCA’s core values is Responsibility,
and especially Social Responsibility. Before we started art class today the
campers and counselors discussed what that means to them. After we decided on a
definition the campers were asked, “What do you think of when you hear the name
New Orleans?”
There were all sorts of answers.
“I think of the doughnuts.”
“I think of when I went to visit”
“I think of Mardi Gras”
“The ocean!”
Then there was the inevitable;
“I think of the flood.”
Since 2005 New Orleans has been a
city in recuperation. Habitat For Humanity still visits regularly; many houses
and individuals are still in need for support. For anyone of the older
generations all of us can remember the massive hurricane and endless news
reports. Yet, as the Tiger Girls pointed out, they were only one when the
disaster occurred. Still, they were more then eager to help.
When New Orleans began looking to
rebuild, scientists surveyed the land for damages only to discover that the
entire soil beneath the city is contaminated with lead that places new
generations in harms way. It is possible to clear this contamination, but not
easily. The cost to the U.S. government of such a cleanup would be a whopping 300
million dollars.When this information
became public artists heard the call for help and created a program entitled
Fundred.
Fundred is an organization that
offers “100 dollar bill” templates for educators and non-profits. “Donators”
can design and color these templates and then send them to a collection point
where the dollars are then transferred to a holding spot outside of New
Orleans. Upon the receipt of the equivalent of 300 million of these handmade
dollar bills Fundred has made plans with the United States Congress to bring
these bills forward, effectively showing the support of thousands of members of
the newest generation.
When the campers heard about this
and realized they could make a difference for kids there age only a few states
away they were ready to draw! Many did at least two or three bills, signing one
as themselves and signing the names of their loved ones on the others. Even the
counselors joined in.
For more information on the Fundred
project please visit:
The campers will keep working on
these during free time through out the week, by the end we will have several
stacks ready to ship off to help change the world!
A video from other students working with the Fundred program:
