January 14: Introduction to Studio Africa

Children are no different than most adults when introduced to something new and often need some time to adjust to the new people and new focus.  In January the studio Africa program started inside the classroom with students getting to know their facilitators with icebreakers, introductory exercises, setting ground rules, signing student contracts and taking a pre-test to see how much basic information students know about Africa.  All students help create the ground rules for how they will behave and function during Studio Africa as well as sign a student contract so from the beginning students know they are getting involved with something serious and important but trust us - we have a lot fun too!

The activities consisted of an overview of the Africa continent and countries,  Specifically, learning all the countries through a word search puzzle; learning the geographical locations of the countries bordering oceans and major rivers, through games; and each student selects an African country they will use as the focus for future arts projects.