What are you grateful for?

The theme this week was based on recognizing the things we are grateful for and recognizing the emotions that we all have. In our opening circle everyone made a gratitude list that included one aspect we were grateful for physically, one aspect we were grateful for as a friend, one aspect about our family relations and one aspect about ourselves in the world.

Our yoga practice focused on tuning into the emotions we have and physically challenging ourselves to do strengthening poses.

Emotion paintings were made during our studio time using a water color resist technique. A short critique of our work was held at the end of the session.

Body Politics

In our yoga practice we focused on listening to each part of our body. Andy Warhol was our inspiration for our art making practice this week. We talked about Pop art and viewed several examples of Warhol’s screen prints. This lead as inspiration for our intaglio print making project where each girl drew a line drawing of herself that was transferred to a foam printing plate and then printed onto several sheets of paper.

Tree of Strength

This week after the girls had their opening circle and yoga practice we focused on the interviews that they had with a women in their lives. The girls were then asked to make a leaf, on this leaf the girls would write about a woman that they admired. Each girl also made a leaf about herself. Many of the girls made leaves for their mothers, teachers, and other family members. When the leaves were completed they were asked to hang them on our tree of strength. In our closing circle the girls formed a circle and did tree pose, connecting their arms to one another.

Full of Ourselves

Girls arrived at Kidspace and were welcomed by Karen Arp-Sandel, their yoga and art teacher as well as Shannon Toye the Education Coordinator, Jo Edmondson the After School Project Coordinator and Laura Thompson, Director of Kidspace. A welcome circle gave everyone an opportunity to say who they were and what brought them to the Mona Lisa Project. After getting to know one another we moved into our Yoga studio where each girl found her own bright orange yoga mat with her name on it. For many of the girls this was their first experience doing yoga. Karen led them through their yoga experience. Finally the girls moved into the art making space where they were each given a journal to decorate. The girls will be using these journals to write in weekly when they come to MLP. As the girls decorated their journals Karen led the girls through a discussion on what it means to be full of yourself. Is it is a good thing, a bad thing, can it be both? Karen had the girls finish in a closing circle where we threw all of our negative energy into a circle and breathed in new positive energy. The girls were asked to go home and have an informal interview with a woman and find out a time when she felt confident and powerful.

PREparAtion

We are officially one week away from beginning the program. Although we have been preparing for the program for a while now today we tied up some loose ends like cutting countless bright orange yoga mats and meeting with Karen Arp Sandel to go over the curriculum she has planned for the girls (which is oh so fabulous). The whole staff is so excited and passionate about this project.... we just can't wait to get started!!! We have just over twenty eighth grade girls signed up from Clarksburg and Conte middle schools. I have had the opportunity over the past few weeks to meet with all of the girls who will be participating in the program. Each girl brings something different to the program!