Paso Robles events

Tonight Pedro and I will be at the Paso Robles Library- una Hora de Cuentos, desde las 6:30 hasta las 7:30. Es una celebracion del fin del ano escolar para sus programas en Espanol.

Vengan a esuchar cuentos, cantar canciones y celebrar la literatura!

ALSO, Saturday is the Paso Robles Festival of the Arts, there will be a lot of fun activities going on through out the day.
UpcycleSLO will be doing a booth in the Youth Area from 10am-3pm.
In the spirit of artist and children's book illustrator Faith Ringgold, we will be doing story quilts. Using upcycled material participants can cut and glue fabric or draw with fabric markers, and when finished the quilt squares will be sewn into a whole, on the spot.

Watercolor insects

Today I finished my watercolor project with my 1st graders. The first class we experimented with techniques: wet, on wet, crayon resist, using salt, etc. Then for our next class we drew bugs, using our observational skills- I had a bag of plastic insects (thanks Deb!). I also read a Dr Seuss book about bugs and told a couple bug jokes- haha! Today we did the watercolor.

Any art teachers out there reading this? How long does a box of w/c paints last for your 1st graders? At least I tried to clean out the yellows!

Why was the baby ant so confused? Because all of his uncles were ants!

Apron contest at Beverly's Fabric

Today I turned in my apron for the Apron Contest at Beverly's Fabric Store in downtown SLO, the winners get gift certificates, and not that I am biased or anything, but I do think mine is pretty original!

It is the only one- that I know of- to use text, "AMOR is the sweetest ingredient", plus, it has a detachable hot pad!

Vote for me, my apron is number 20. Gracias! Voting starts May 17, though many aprons, including mine are on display now, and winners are announced June 1.

Typing in Public

Two fabulously creative and intelligent ladies, Catherine and Mignon have a project called Reading in Public. They have initiated some fun public performances, if you will, involving, yes, reading in public.

Now, they have created Typing in Public!!! Yes, there will be typewriters around downtown SLO this Saturday, May 15 and you are welcome to add your two cents worth! At the end of the day, all written work will be read at Sally Loo's Cafe near the train station. I'll be at the SLO Library at 10 am.

Check out their site for more details: http://www.readinginpublic.com/

BooBoos music time

Join me tomorrow, Wednesday May 12 as I take over for the fabulous Heide while she is on vacation.
10:15 am, join a million toddlers and their caregivers for songs in English and Spanish at SLO's best music store!

1st grade project

I started 1st grade teaching the primary colors and symmetry. We made butterflies with construction paper and practiced folding paper and cuttingout shapes - to get two equal shapes- and glueing them on symmetrically.
The next class we continued with primary colors and also looked at artist Piet Mondrian, an artist who is not symmertical in his compositions. I love how each of them turned out so differently!
Kids put pictures together in such a fresh way, that we grown ups can never do! Isn't it great?

A sewing project I did on Mexican TV

This link is to the arts organization where I used to work in Chiapas, Mexico. They started an amazing kids program, using puppets and people that airs on local television there (and I think maybe somewhere in the US now too, imagine a way more creative spanish version of Sesame St), and while we were on vacation in March I had the chance to record a section of the program called el taller de Azul, it's the section where they present an artist or creative idea.
In this section I show how to turn a pillowcase into a blouse.
www.vientosculturales.org/2010/tele/programa85.html
My section is the very end of the program, easier to sit through if you understand Espanol!

Yo soy la mama de Lupe

So I used to have a blog called Imaginartesanluisobispo, which I dedicated to my Spanish/Art classes for kids, but I've decided to make a new one to share with you all the fun creative activities I'm involved in, including a creative collective called UpcycleSLO.

I have been back in the SLO area with my esposo Pedro, and now my daughter Lupe, for about 2 and a half years (before that I was living in Mexico and Guatemala for 4 years) and am finding that there is so much fun and creative things to do. Every week my toddler and I are invovled in activities like story hour at the library, parent participation classes and music time at Boo Boos. I thought about calling my new blog "chispa" which is spanish for spark (a chispa of creativity, etc), or "Crearte" which is the spanish verb for "to create", made reflexive, so, create yourself, etc etc (a play on words). But these blogs were taken already. And then I thought, well, being active in the "toddler scene", or the "circuit", many people know me simply as Lupe's mom. That's how it is with kids; you meet so many other families, usually you only learn the kid's names first. So there it is, an easy name to remember, http://www.lupesmom.com/. Has a ring to it, doesn't it?

Yesterday we did our monthly Spanish Story Hour at the SLO Library, Cantos y Cuentos. IT's always fun. We had a predominantly English speaking crowd this time, so it was a bilingual affair. Catch us again the first Tuesday in June at 4:15, and you don't have to be a Spanish speaker to come, all are welcome!