Decorating Door Hangers!

Written by Sara Llansa

My name is Sara Llansa and I arrived last week on a Tuesday. During the week I helped out with the kids' classes in the afternoon and I also began organizing the curriculum for the adult classes. Friday came along and Meradith explained to me that each Friday AM does an art project with the kids. Verenice, the young girl in my Costa Rican homestay family, told me how much the kids enjoyed the art projects on Friday so I was excited to be involved.

Joel, excited to be in Art Class!

Meradith and I were at the office that Friday and she started to look at the materials that we had available for the art project and she found some foam sheets in different colors. As soon as I saw the foam sheets I thought of this foam door hanger that I have at my house in Texas that my friend made for me. I told Meradith that maybe we could make door hangers with the kids that day and she liked the idea so we started thinking of which materials we could use to decorate them, and how we would explain it to the kids.

Cynthya ... always so creative.

We found some letters that the kids could stick on the foam sheets in order to write their names and we found a few other fun materials that they could use. As soon as we got to the Kids' Club we saw all the kids waiting for us. We were hoping to separate the kids into two rounds so that the room wouldn't get too crazy, but we weren't able to do this so all the kids did the project at once.

Sucelli, Oscar and Genisus, some of our regulars.

The kids got more creative and more creative as the afternoon went along. They started out by simply putting their names, but then they used all sorts of decorations. Some of the kids even made door hangers for their mothers. Other kids made more than one!

Cesar with his awesome door hanger!

By the end of the afternoon the kids still had energy so we put some music on (thanks Charlotte) and we had a mini-dance party. Most of the kids were happy to show off their dance moves. The dance party was a nice end to the Friday art project. Cleaning up went by quickly because we had the help of some of the girls in the AM classes. Verenice made a door hanger for herself and one for her brother, Dilan and they're hanging in the house right now. I'm looking forward to the next art project!