Making music...making instruments!

The sound of rice shaking around in a bottle, the clacking of wooden sticks colliding. Making instruments was a hit, Elizabeth designed the lesson around recycling and the children enjoyed the sounds of their own creations.

We even added colored water to the light table and had the children tap it with spoons and describe the sound. It was lots of fun!

Puppets come to life!

Art Camp is running through August and so we decided to have the children make their own puppets and put on their very own show. Hsuan-Hsiu crafted a lesson that enabled the children to use several different materials to create their own puppet.

The children really had fun with this project and some couldn't wait for their puppets to dry before taking them home.

Let's make dough!

Making dough is an activity children never get tired of creating. This week Lauren had the children make beads out of their dough mixture. After the dough hardened we had the children paint them and string as necklaces. Boys and girls went home with self-made adornments that they were really proud of. I actually noticed a child wearing their Magical Minds Studio creation at Whole Foods a few days later. It was very inspiring to know these children are building confidence with their art explorations.

Printing Time

There are many fun ways to learn about printing. Elizabeth decided to guide the children on a larger scale. We turned our banquet table into a painting canvas and let the children explore various colors of paint and tools to create lines, designs and prints!

Grand Opening Celebration and more...

Although we opened last October we thought it would be best to celebrate our grand opening in the summer. We had a blast with the children and we think they did too.

Congrats to those of you that won our raffle prizes! Thanks to Chris Fascione for his talented juggling act and storytelling skills. Also to Jim Hapenstal for his guitar playing, the children really enjoyed dancing.

Below are a few pictures from that day...including a picture of my newest family member, Leo Wilson. He arrived the Wednesday before the grand opening!