Marianna

Cultural History and Crafts Teacher

Resources

Bookings

Dough Sculptures!

Mondays

4:15pm - 5:15pm

6 Classes

2/23, 3/2, 3/9, 3/16, 3/23, 4/6

Grades K-2

20 students

Yarn’d It! Hands-on Fiber Fun

Tuesdays

4:00pm - 5:00pm

6 Classes

4/7, 4/14, 4/21, 4/28, 5/5, 5/12

Grades 3-5

20 students

EcoCraft Creations Adventure

Thursdays

3:30pm - 4:30pm

9 Classes

1/22, 1/29, 2/5, 2/19, 2/26, 3/5, 3/12, 3/19, 3/26

Grades K-3

9 students

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Experiences

Little urban gardeners will explore the world of gardening in their environment. They will discover composting, propagate plants, and learn the crop cycle. In a hothouse setting, they'll explore native California crops and experience the magic of growth.
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Step into a world where imagination takes shape. Dive into creative adventures with salt dough, clay, acrylic paint, markers, cardboard, and plastic straws. Experiment with texture and color to create unique sculptures and embark on a journey of artistic discovery.
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Explore creativity by transforming everyday items into extraordinary art. Discover upcycling as cloth, egg cartons, paper, and popsicle sticks become exciting new creations. Use imagination with tools like staplers, hot glue, and yarn for sustainable, inventive fun.
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In a whimsical world of movement and creativity, children discover the magic of crafting their own paper dolls and marionettes. Using yarn, crayons, and stickers, they'll bring fairies to life. This joyful activity ignites imaginations and develops creativity and motor skills.
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After the school bell rings, the adventure continues with an inviting afterschool experience. It offers a supportive environment for imagination to soar. Children can unwind, explore new activities, or enjoy hobbies with art, crafts, reading, and camaraderie.
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Embark on a culinary journey where budding chefs create delightful recipes, experimenting with colorful salads, mouthwatering sandwiches, and refreshing smoothies. Young gourmets will also craft scrumptious desserts, discovering the joy of healthy eating and delicious meals.
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Unleash colorful creativity with an exciting dive into the world of craft! Explore yarn, weaving, crochet, and macrame. Develop fine motor skills with each loop and weave, creating personal masterpieces. Share ideas and make new friends while crafting memories.
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Children are transported to the vibrant heart of French culture, learning the language while exploring famous landmarks and captivating stories. They dive into traditional dances, twirling and stepping to lively rhythms, making unforgettable memories.
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Get ready to twirl, leap, and shimmy through the splendid world of music and movement, where traditions meet modern beats. Kids groove to lively French tunes, learning language basics through engaging activities, fostering coordination and a love for global cultures.
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Dive into a vibrant world where Spanish language meets playful learning in an exciting adventure. Through storytelling, children will embark on a journey with imaginative hands-on activities. Enchanting tales and creating adorable sock puppets enhance the experience.
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About Marianna

Marianna brings a unique fusion of European cultural depth and American adaptability to her teaching. Her passion for crafts, history, and education stems from her days in a historical dance group during college. This unique background fuels her engaging teaching style, particularly evident in her role at the Ukrainian School in San Francisco where she taught embroidery to children. As an interpreter and moderator for USA Supports UA, she bridges cross-cultural connections, fostering English learning through storytelling. Marianna's love for learning, commitment to kindness, and creativity make her classroom a haven of discovery and joy.

Class reflections

Travel Through France Language and Culture Series

🌈

September 25, 2025

Cathedral School for Boys

Way better than before, even ifvthe kids are still more interested in running around after some 15-20 minutes of the start of class.

Today students watched a little presentation about Nouvelle Aquitaine, our third "destination" in the travels. They also got an activity with paper airplanes and colors, practiced naming the colors in French, we read a book Un Loup qui voulait changer des couleurs (a Wolf who wanted to change colors) and listened to a song about a Rainbow (Arc en ciel, by Will et Seeka). We also repeated some words from the last two "voyages" and looked at the map to see where our steps are tak8ng us.

Enrichment Program Substitute Supervisor

😊

September 25, 2025

Mission Dolores Academy

Extremely good. Students were not too happy to do the homework but we did at least some, each.

Checked students in, helped them with homework, spent some free play time in the yard, helped with the crafts when they were ready for the crafts

Tasty Time: What's for Lunch?

👩‍🍳

September 23, 2025

Tru

I will prepare something easier for the next class, because even the "thirty minutes recipe" turned out to be too long to go through with such a big and mixed-age group.

We did muffins. Speaking of cooking, the students did: - read the instructions, - supervise younger students (mostly I supervised them) on measuring the ingredients, - actually measure the ingredients and putting them in the appropriate bowls in the appropriate order, - whisk, mix and fold the batter, - stay very, very patient when the muffins were baking in the oven, regarding their age, - clean up after the cooking.

Yarn’d It! Hands-on Fiber Fun

🧶

September 20, 2025

The Carey School - Main

It is quite nice but I have to prepare a bit different activities with yarn for this younger group of students, and more "mid class" movement breaks, stories, songs etc

today we got to know each other, talked a bit about where the yarn comes from and how it is made. Students shared what projects they would like to make, and we tried the "finger crocheting". Two students out of six were getting it really quick, other four were tired of this activity, so we created a small tassle with them that they called "a mop". One student decided that she'd like to wear her creation on the ankle, one student (a couple of years older than the rest) did the single crochets over her chain. We also had an improvised game of silly sounds.

Travel Through France Language and Culture Series

🎉

September 19, 2025

Cathedral School for Boys

Still chaotic,but it seems I am getting the things they are lore inclined to do and can get them learning some French in the process. We will do a bit more coloring next week and way more structured movements.

It was loud and sort of more contrilled chaos than the Class1. We had all 6 students today, and two of them are way more energetic than the rest. We did some greetings, some recap, some run-around-new-words (I printed the "locations", the names for the locations like museum, restaurant, park etc in both French and English, the students matched the names with the pictures and put them around the class, then we called where we all go and were running to the called location); I prepared a little presentation on the French region we "traveled to": the Loire river, we listened to some songs, and colored/drew some additional stuff.

Yarn’d It! Hands-on Fiber Fun

🧶

September 18, 2025

Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School

It went well, we did some recap on what we did and fixed some things on "omg how do I do that".

today we did a small swatch of single crochets: 10 sc in one row and as many rows as we can get in one hour of the class. We used the techniques we learned in the first two classes, the chain (to start the project) and then the single crochets like in a scrunchie, to go "up". Students mastered their grip, got a bit better understanding on the logic of crocheting, and completed at least two rows each. I had to help them rather frequently, but it seems that they grasped the idea and can continue crocheting for their enjoyment at home. Also they sang some songs and shared some fun facts, as it goes in "ladies crafting circles".

Enrichment Program Substitute Supervisor

😊

September 13, 2025

Mission Dolores Academy

For me a picture of today's activity is when really well, I think I'm extremely prepare to just be present. Have like an eye over the students and be compassionate and hear them if they want to share something and talk to them. If they want to listen to something else, that was that star students required at the end of the day, they were like Why do we want to talk about how we can we want to share our emotions? Because our parents are still stuck in traffic. So I provided all this concourses and and here two years ago and for me it was a bit interesting that when I came there and presented them to print out that I got yesterday. And today the school told me like, no, no.

Okay, hi. It was really nice to have the engagement as a substitute today, we got, but when his uncle students and they were doing their science enrichment, for is another teacher from grasshopper, they were doing some activities outside with volunteer from USF, eyes closed. And the last hour was the most difficult for exam 2. Just stay calm and wait until their parents will come. It was just two or three students graph that were picked up later than all the other people. So it went really good for all of us.

Travel Through France Language and Culture Series

🎉

September 12, 2025

Cathedral School for Boys

It was loud and very active: four out of five students, being boys after a very long school day, wanted to move, run, jump, play-fight etc rather than listen to the book, read the word on a white board, repeat the pronounced words after me. I will prepare way more fun songs to move and dance for my future classes, and some movement games like "jump on the color" (with colored paper dots or other color markers and naming colors in French), "Simon says /verb in French/", "Up, down, left and right" (for some new vocabulary words), and will prepare BIG coloring pages, usind a roll of paper I have at home + packaging paper I have from Amazon Deliveries. They enjoyed having a tiny "bring home Zine", with some coloring, word search of today's vocab, and the song we learned. It was a cool thing to have for the last 5-ish minutes to encourage them to clean up and get ready for the outside.

First class in the series. We got to know each other, and the students have shown me their potential and their main interests and preferred activities. They were enjoying the simple "color the map" that I prepared on the spot, and the guessing game "where in the world France is". They liked the video+song (mostly because it is video), and they loved moving around. They know a little bit of French, so we can move forward from that, and despite being in the 1st grade they are pretty fluent in reading and recognizing all the letters and many syllables. We had a hands-on activity "make a paper boat" to learn a word "bateau", a song "Bateau sur l'eau" and dance a bit for that song. The semi-successfull activity is the puzzle game "French Regions", I will try to make it more enjoyable. We read a book "Escargot" about a French (bilingual) snail, the first book in the series.

Yarn’d It! Hands-on Fiber Fun

🧶

September 11, 2025

Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School

Today we crocheted a scrunchie, using a new crochet stitch - the "single crochet". In the midterm we had a bit of stretching and during the whole class we had a bit of chitchat here and there (as it usually goes in crafting circles).

Yarn’d It! Hands-on Fiber Fun

🧶

September 11, 2025

Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School

To me it was more calm than the first class, as the students already know me (a bit) and I know them. We had only 3 students this time, but I expect the fourth student to join us again next time.

We crocheted a scrunchie, using a new technique, the "single crochet". In the mid-time of the class we did some stretches (and students made some art on the whiteboard), and during the whole class we had a little bit of chitchat, as it usually goes in the crafting circles.

Testimonials

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