Arts and Crafts.

Students engaged in separate three arts and craft sessions in the afternoon. Specifically, using balloons and papier-mâché (strips of wet newspaper), they first created shapes over the balloons. When these were dry later, they then painted and decorated them, using a variety of bright and colorful materials provided. There was no set decorative theme for these shapes, so students were free to express their individuality and creativity. Shapes included hearts and regular balloon shapes, the latter which were then decorated as a variety of faces, fruits, animals and festive shapes. The hearts were used to decorate the stage for Salsa Night. These were all empty, so the regular shapes were then filled with small candies and finally, on Salsa Night, students could use these as piñatas (a particularly South American type of celebration). As one of the fun activities, the piñatas were hung from above, selected students were blindfolded and then tried to strike and open these piñatas using a long stick. The candies then fell out and were shared by all students. Students designed and made the costumes for the Final Performance, from raw materials provided by camp staff. This also demonstrated their originality and great creativity. In these art and craft sessions, some students also made personal face masks, which were later decorated and then used at the Salsa party. It was an interesting and memorable event that also showed students an exotic cultural event, related to salsa, which they had themselves created.