Volcanoes part four

This week we introduced the children to basic animation techniques allowing the children to bring their volcanoes to life, with erupting lava, flying chickens and jumping stickmen.

As this was the last week of 'Colonial Vocational' we held an exhibition in each sector giving the children the opportunity to proudly share their work with their families as well as the other children participating in the different activities of CV.

                                                            Photo: Laura Montag

To round off the week we recreated an active volcano by mixing fizzy drink and mints to make a lively eruption – a fitting finale, if a little messy.

Volcanoes part three

 

 

This week the children have been decorating their volcanoes with forests, villages, churches, roads, lakes, a few luxury swimming pools and one of the boys decided to recreate the Barcelona football stadium at the foot of his volcano.

The children named their volcanos and made little flags to celebrate their creations. Many were named after famous Ecuadorian volcanoes such as 'Chimborazo', 'Cotopaxi' but a few invented new names such as 'Corazon' (heart) and 'Davidbura' a creative combination of the child's name and a volcano named  'Imbabura'.

Hot off the press

Below a couple of links to newspaper articles where JUCONI and art club feature:
El telegrafo (we're in the second picture )
The expreso

Volcanoes part two

In this second week of colonial vocacional the children have been making three dimensional volcanoes using cardboard, newspaper and paper maché and an impressive total of 55 volcanoes were constructed by the end of the week.

Luckily we were able to use mainly recycled materials including left over bottles and cardboard packaging from the children's refreshments, just a quick scrub and they were ready to go.
We divided the process into different stages to allow the volcanoes to dry and harden before being painted which gave us time to play 'Pin the lava on the volcano', a classic game adapted to fit our volcano theme.

The children all really enjoyed making things with their hands and the prospect of using paint never fails to whip up an excited frenzy.

Volcanoes part one

School holidays (colonial vocacional) have started and together with JUCONI we're embarking on a whole month of extra activities for the kids and their parents in the 4 sectors across the city. We've chosen volcanoes as our theme; there are over 40 volcanoes in Ecuador and they are a fascinating and dramatic part of the national landscape.
We started out with a quiz to teach the children some facts about volcanoes and played a game called 'dodge the lava', using a soft foam ball covered with strips of orange tissue paper which worked a treat.

Our main activity was painting the avenue of volcanoes, using pencils, watercolours, crayons and tissue paper and we were really impressed with many of their drawings, very expressive and creative.

To round the off the day we played 'Kaboom', in which the children had to guess which Ecuadorian volcano would erupt next…

Yikes!

We came across this crazy coloured grasshopper today on our walk to visit a family in Sergio Torral. Andy became a bit uneasy when it started marching up his trouser leg, so we helped it back to its habitat...