Club de Arte 3.01: Mandalas

THEME OF WEEK 3:01: Reconnecting through mandalas.

Art Club with Fundación Junto Con Los Niños - JUCONI 

and the Charlotte Miller Art Project in Guayaquil, Ecuador

IDEA AND AIMS:  Firstly to use the simple, personal and relaxing activity of drawing a mandala to reopen our three afternoon spaces in Nueva Prosperina, Sergio Toral and Socio Vivienda 2 and to start from scratch a new session on Monday mornings with another group in Socio Vivienda 2.  Secondly to gather information from the children about how they feel about their various skills through a self-evaluation table.  Thirdly, to hand back all of the work from the previous 2 stages of Art Club: "Our Community" and "Our Superheroes".

PROCESS:  The children create their own personalised mandala design in the circle on the handout, using coloured pencil crayons and markers, rulers and compasses to divide up the space.  Later they respond to the self-evalutation table by ticking the relevant box.

Mandala and self-evaluation sheets from Sergio Toral: the children were asked to tick the box of their choice from the selection "Very good, good, don't know, bad and very bad" to describe their ability in 1. communicating, 2. Respecting, 3. Colaborating and sharing, 4. Creating and 5. Trying new things.

The information gathered from the self-evaluation forms showed that 90% of the children believe themselves to be "very good" or "good" at communicating, 92% believe themselves to be "very good" or "good" at respecting and at creating and 84% believe themselves to be "very good" or "good" at sharing and collaborating and at doing new things.  In all areas with the exception of respecting this is an increase since the last self-evaluation taken back in May this year ("Very good" or "Good" in May 2014: Communicating 76%, Respecting 94%, Colaborating and Sharing and Creating both 61%, Trying new things 84%.).  We hope that this increase is a refecltion of the children's increasing self-confidence in themselves and their abilities through the Art Club workshops.

Materials: All of the work of the children from the previous sessions February to July 2014, instruction posters and examples, print-outs of the mandala & self-evaluation sheets, pencils, coloured pencils, rubber and sharpeners, rulers, compasses, felt pens and the camera.

Hard at work in Sergio Toral, continuing in the back room of Señor Napa's house.

                         Mandala designs from Sergio Toral.

Re-opening our space in Nueva Prosperina at the school La Sagrada Familia.

Mandala designs from Nueva Prosperina.

The new space in Socio Vivienda 2, in a church by the neighbourhood's football pitch.

Overall this was a great opening activity.  It was a real delight to see how happy the kids were at getting their old work back , in particular seeing their excitement at having photos of themselves amongst their creations!  Looking forward to seeing the work they will produce over this next term of Art Club.

One of the most unusual and original designs from this week (back at the beginning of October!)… a fierce looking creature from one of our 10-year-olds in Nueva Prosperina