Artasia at St. Marguerite D'Youville

During the first week we managed to understand the concept of self-identity with must students. Even though some children were perplexed by the composition of the exercise, most of them managed to answer questions such as, what their favourite colour, animal, plant etc were. To start the conversation on fabric and its usage regarding arts and crafts was very relevant for the next few weeks; the children seemed excited to create with something as different as fabric is!

As we approach week 2, we’re able to provide kids with a context where banner and flags have been historically used to signify movements and bring communities together. The importance of this week was to introduce them to an artistic way of creating awareness and cultural pride of whatever makes them proud of their community. The inspiration to most children was the importance of every child matters, from the indigenous community; we were able to create a connection between that and how important it is to respect the Rights of the Child! Truly a very rewarding week that left us with a momentum that was only building more excitement for the upcoming weeks!

For this day in St. Margarite, we were gifted great weather which permitted us to go outside to enjoy the sun and do tie-dye around the playground! Since the activity was held there, it took the kids a minute to realize they could do their tie-dye activity and come back to it once it air dried ! After one of the kids took the initiative to start with the task, the rest gathered around and we were able to create at least 2 pieces of tie-dyed fabric per kid! They absolutely loved the colours and we had very interesting conversations about natural dyes compared to store-bought; most of them realized they could do the dye at home whenever they wanted and were very excited about the project. 

For our fourth week in St. Marguerite, we focused on how creating our own wearable pieces would help us develop that self-expression that we were trying to build for ourselves these past few weeks. Initially, a talk about sustainability and creativity provided the children with enough context to want to create their own wearable fashion! Most of them wanted to design a clothing item for their stuffy; the initial thoughts were blankets and then a girl suggested we can also use the pipe cleaners to create superhero capes for the animals with the same fabric as the children used so they could both have the same “wardrobe”. We were able to reflect on belonging and upcycling with the children and they all seemed very excited about using more old clothes or fabric scraps to encourage their siblings to create clothes for their stuffed animals at home. 

Our last week in St. Marguerite symbolized the joyous culmination of our collective efforts into bringing children to try new materials for the arts and crafts. We started our session with a promp asking which was our favourite meal cooked by either of our parents, the answers provided enough creativity for kids to start cutting the felt and paper into their most remembered dishes from home. We found out how several of them had a type of snack or food very unique for their culture, and we celebrated the unity in diversity and how through shared traditions and experiences, we were able to innovate in our favourite dishes!

María P. Puerto