Friday, August 30, 2013

Summer Urban Camp: Circus school, first week II

*Day 3: Clown-zamba
The half of the week arrived and we started the morning playing outside! The first game was "order in the square". There was a small square drawn on the floor with chalk. All the kids were inside of the square, and they were tight enough to do this game more difficult and funnier! The kids had to order themselves inside the square according to some rules, for example: "all the kids with blue eyes go to the left side" without going out of the square!













After some running games we went to the classroom to prepare us for the day's activity. This day was the clown day so the first thing we needed was a clown costume. We prepared a handmade clown costume with a clown-hat and a clown-tie and we also painted our faces!



Everyone was prepared to play our clown games in a very elegant clown costume:



We chose our clown names, for example I was Confetti, Yoana was Rumplesltiltskin, and Daniel was Spaghetti.

Clown games and activities are used to stimulate our creativity, our self esteem and our social relationships. Through clown activities we try to discover the pleasure of playing, we try to overcome the failures and we try to laugh about ourselves. A clown is naive, genuine and tender, like a child.
One of the funniest games we played was "This is not a book". This is a game to stimulate our imagination and to improvise in front of the others to get used to the public. Every kid is sit down in a circle except one who is in the middle with a book. He-she will start by saying "This is not a book. It is..." and develop an action like playing piano (so in this case the book is not a book, it is a piano). The kids were very imaginative so the book was so many things like a bed, a sandwich, a mirror, a trompet, a horse, a roof...


*Day 4: Clown-zamba II




For Thursday's outside games we chose "human bowling" and "the rabbits and the hunters". In "the rabbits and the hunters" all the kids are stand up in a circle except 2 who are in the middle. One of them will be the rabbit and the other the guardian. The kids from the circle have a ball and they will try to shoot the rabbit with it meanwhile the guardian try to avoid it with his-her own body.




This day we continued with clown activities. We started with some trust-games to work the confidence between the kids like the submarine or "run to me".



 Finally we wore red noses to play the last clown games, like races of worms, fishes in a can or bubbles; and to perform the last clown improvisations, like a zombie parade.




*Day 5: Acrobatic-zamba II
 
Friday was the last day of the first week of the camp, and also the half of the camp. We carried out the activities of this day in a big room of the Direction, so our "outside games" to start the day were, in fact, "inside games". We played "blinky blinky", in this game all the kids are stand up in one side of the room, except one (it) who is in the opposite side . The kids are in couples, one kid behind the other one, looking to the same direction. It will blink to one of the kids of the first line who will run to its direction. The aim of the kids of the second line is to catch the kid in front of themselves and to avoid that they will run to the other side.




We also played "ten times". For this all the kids were divided in 2 groups, the oranges and the lemons. To remember better who belongs to the groups, each kid had a yellow or orange dot painted on the nose. The aim of the game is to pass the ball 10 consecutive times to the members of our team, meanwhile the other team will try to catch the ball to start their time.










And we played "sweetie cat" too. All  the kids are sitting down in a circle, except one who is a cat. The aim of the cat is to make someone of the circle laugh, the aim of the others is repeat "sweetie cat" 3 times without laughing.


After the games we were warm enough to start the second level of acrobatics. This time we started with some floor acrobatics.




And again, we practised acrobatics in couples:





 

Finally we did some group acrobatics:




Al :)