National Museum of Mexican Art - Christian Malagon-Bravo, Week 3

    Hello everyone! The past few weeks have been filled with so many activities. The last week we focused on preserving of memories and stories through various methods. The campers also improved so much on their dance routine and have been practicing for their performance near the end of the summer camp.


    On Monday, we were introduced to our new instructor Kaelyn and we started on our new project of the week. The project consisted of building a refrigerator out of cardboard and paper mache. We created this because it's very common for families to place important documents, photos, magnets, and other symbolic items on a refrigerator. 



    On Tuesday, the campers created magnets using model magic so they can stick it to their refrigerator. Many magnets consisted of the campers favorite fruits and vegetables. Grapes, watermelon, strawberries, pizza, fries, and hamburgers were made by the campers. 


    On Wednesday, we took a field trip to the Sedd Aquarium. The campers were provided with disposable cameras. So, they can take pictures of the animals they say. The campers were also tasked to take a picture of something scary, something cute, something they think is cool and the challenging task of making a small thing look big and a big thing seem small. This challenged them to use perspective to to change the way something looks.



    On Thursday, we tried to make photo imprints on wooden slabs. This was a difficult activity to do with the campers because it required a lot of patients and you had to be gentle when exposing the photo or else pieces of it would fall off. When the campers tried to expose the photo many saw their image fall apart and they wanted to give up because everything was going wrong. But, we showed them the importance of making the best out of the situation and many decided to add drawings to their photo to make it look better.


    On Friday, we had the chance to demonstrate to the campers how to make an Ojo de dios craft. This opportunity gave us valuable feedback on how to improve our video for the NMMA en Casa channel. Many of the campers were excited to try the craft out and many completed the Ojo de dios and even wanted to make more with different colors.



    Overall, I learned so much about how to handle difficult situations such as when the campers felt like giving up on their project and how to motivate them and inspire them to make it better. It's always fun to see how the campers react to a new instructor and theirs always this small period of time when the campers are trying to see how the instructor teaches their projects.



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