August provided another month of incredible learning and fun at Journey into Chinese Culture summer camp. We learned all about Peking Opera and the Monkey Kind and had a chance to practice firsthand with a real expert and opera star. Children got to try their hand at applying the opera makeup and came away very enthused about this traditional art and its preservation. We also learned about clay sculpture and the special techniques used to make beautiful art. We learned how to make clay frogs which was loads of fun and challenged our finger dexterity.
On our trip to the Capital Museum, we found ourselves surrounded by lots of fascinating aspects of Beijing culture, including hutong style weddings, lifecycles, Chinese New Year traditions, and other things uniquely Beijing. Children took a particular interest in traditional Beijing handcrafted toys. We got to try them out for ourselves and thought about how children in the past had the same fun experience we were having.
During sports time, which is held each day, we learned Wushu from an excellent instructor, played games on the carpet, and kept moving with active games. We found many young acrobats in the group able to perform forward and backwards roll with excellent form.
Building on foundations from the July session, children honed their water color painting and other art skills in addition to kite making. We continued forward in our goal of mastering the Three Character Classic with impressive progress. We made similar progress in out calligraphy, mastering more complicated strokes while refining our individual styles. We definitely have many burgeoning young artists among us!
Although camp may have drawn to close for this summer of 2009, we have so much to look forward to as we enter the new school year along with wonderful memories of our precious time shared together. Thank you to all our young friends for sharing your summer us!
