As a new class in a new school, a little bit nervous before the class but then pretty good. Next time I definitely have to bring extra activities as they became bored some 10-15 min before the end of the class.

Today we did the Flowers out of egg cartons and q-tips. Students got the idea very quickly and were very active, so we did even more than I thought (the whole flower + a leaf).

At the start I was a bit nervous, because it is the first class with this group, but we got quite comfortable and in the mood of learning pretty fast.

Today, we cooked Old-Fashioned Pancakes, from scratch. Students were quite excited measuring, mixing, flipping the pancakes and actually eating them.

Absolutely awesome. Lots of students already know me and they were having the greatest last day of school in this semester — some drawing, other just vibing.

It went great — the school had a Winter Concert tonight, so we were supervising the students before the show and a little bit during the show.

It was noisy as one of the previous classes, but we managed to go through it. Most kids felt quite comfortable in tasting different combinations of cheese-and-fruit or cheese-and-vegetable, and in creating something out of their imagination.

We did the Christmas salad out of something green (arugula leaves), something red (bell peppers, tomatoes and radishes) and something white (cream cheese and apple slices). Students decided that they want to do not only the Wreath pattern (circular one on the plate), but the Reindeer too, so we had a number of Reindeers at the end as well.

It was quite relaxing but a bit sad that it is the last class in the series

Today we finished quite ok. The oldest student in this group (2nd grader) continues and finished, with some help, the basic shape of amigurumi (3d crocheted stuffy). The other students were engaged in creating a simplier yarn-and-cardboard-ring craft, "a flower", that involves measuring a piece of yarn, cutting it, folding, tying to the ring, counting and additional tying in a pattern. One student (the youngest) was mostly interested in cutting the provided yarn into smaller pieces and using scissors in both hands, so I asked her frequently to help me in cutting the string and she looked quite satisfied with that task.

For me it was a bit loud but okay. I love that kids were engaged and grouped themselves in teams according to their preferences and abilities; we ended up with one team of "older" children who did everything by themselves with just a bit of my guidance and a group of younger children whom I supervised closely and encouraged not to eat the whole batch of butter-and-sugar before it is done as cookies 🫣

We made some shortbread cookies — kids mostly worked on measuring and mixing, and the cleanup after we were done

this class was relaxed and a bit sad because it is the last one in these series. I am happy to see that the students are feeling very confident in crocheting.

today students were creating the crocheted items of their liking and I helped them a bit on reading the pattern and getting the stitches right. One student decided that it is more fun to do beads and pipe cleaner dolls, other three were more into crocheting (a heart, a scruncie and a christmas boot ornament)

Way better than the previous time as now I knew some of the students and we had some cool stuff done.

Today we had a full set of students (5) and made some Winter Holidays crafts using mainly pipe cleaners and scissors. I have shown them how to do candles and some students copied me, others decided that their creation of the day is a magic worm, an apple and a flower. We had a little disruption closer to the end (one student was picked up for a show rehearsal) and we decided to pivot towards some brain break/superwised playground time, that later was pivoted once again to watching the show time, from the afterschool supervision staff approvement. Overall the students were happy to create and to make some storytelling around their creations.

It was exciting to see all students again after a break, but I miscalculated our speed and we did the activity in less than 10 minutes. The rest of the class I prompted students to express their creativity, we did some counting and comparision, some engineering and some biology ("why this raspberry sooks like this?"). This time kids actually cleaned after themselves and were on time for the outside, and I call it a win - despite a too easy activity.

today we did the fruit skewers with marshmallows - an easy snack that supposed to be a Grinch's head. Older kids got creative and after making one or two as described they did their own food sculptures like "a hiker" and an art piece "an elephant". Younger kids were more into abstract translation of the activity and presented the patterned skewers, the all-marshmallow skewers and the all-fruit doll couple. TYhe second half of the class when the oldest kids got bored we had a friendly marshmallow-and-toothpick tower competition.

it went good, but I miscalculated the time needed for the activity and had to get some more engaging ideas on the fly. We had some counting and comparing "how many marshmallows do you have on your skewer, is it more or less than on this skewer?", some engineering (the tower, the hiker and the elephant), some storytelling ("baby doll skewer and mama doll skewer") and some biology ("why this raspberry is so strange - because each cluster is a separate tiny berry that was pollinated, and that one probably didn't get any pollen and didn't grow in a berry").

we did fruit skewers with marshmallows. The students mastered the "Grinch's head" fruit skewer relatively fast and enjoyed expressing themselves in other types of fruit-on-skewer sculpturing. We had a marshmallow-and-toothpick tower, and elephant, a hiker, a set of patterned berry-marshmallow-berry skewers, some multi-legged spiders, and even an impromptu "fire" made of strawberry greens with a roasting marshmallow by it. Kids actually cleaned after they finished the class and were on time for the aftercare.