A Day in the Life: San Mateo Infant Community

It's lunchtime! We love eating delicious food that we prepared while also learning how to serve ourselves!

Parent-teacher Conference, Friday, March 18th

CIN (Community Information Night), Wednesday, March 16, Elementary at 5 p.m. (Emeryville)

Our Batik Work is Finished!

Come and see our HS batik hangings in the San Mateo building!

We have finished our African batik project and are proud of the results. Here are photos that show the second stage of our batik process to finished pieces:

A batik cloth ready to be dyed. The pattern is made with melted wax.

Stirring the cloth in the indigo dye

The cloth is ready to be rinsed and dried

Laying out a cloth to dry

Rinsing out all the excess dye

Reviewing the effect of the wax resist method

Finished batik drying!

Ironing the cloths to melt the remaining wax from the fabric

A Day in the Life: Emeryville Children's House

March 3rd is Hinamatsuri (Doll's Day or Girls' Day).

We celebrated by displaying the Hina dolls, eating Hina-arare(rice crackers) and making a card.

3月3日はひなまつり。

ひな人形をかざり、ひなあられを食べ、カードを作ってお祝いしました。

We held and admired Hina dolls.
ひな人形を手にとってみました。

We helped displaying Hina Dolls.
ひな人形の飾り付けを手伝いました。

One of the children brought Hina-Arare for us to enjoy!
お友達がひなあられを持ってきてくれました！

Yummy!
おいしい！

We colored and decorated the card.
カードに塗り絵をして、かざりました。

Community Involvement Nights Wednesday, March 9th - ND, IC and CH at 5:00 p.m. (San Mateo)

Learning the Ancient African Technique of Batik!

The EK and high-school students explore West-African artform

As our studies of Africa progress, we have been learning about many aspects of the continent: population, climate, elevation, products, peoples, animals, and the many challenges of poverty, lack of healthcare, minimal educational opportunities and poor infrastructure.

Yet, in the midst of all the struggles, peoples of Africa use art and music to express their love of life in inspiring and uplifting ways. Batik is one such textile art, and we have been learning about how it is done, and how the country of Mali is the epicenter of the indigo trade.

Batik is a "wax resist" form of decorating plain textiles. Here we are melting hot wax. We will drip, paint or stamp the hot wax into the fabric. Later when we dye the fabric, the wax will "resist" the dye and therefore create a pattern in the fabric.

We are watching the paraffin wax melt and thinking how to use blocks of foam to make shapes and patterns on the fabric.

This student decided to "paint" the hot wax onto the fabric and created a free-form design.

Using a combination of foam stamping and free-hand drawing to create an effect

Like artists in Mali, this student takes her inspiration from the natural world - leaves and flowers.

Deciding on the size and shape of a foam block. Getting the shape's dimensions is important to the success of the final product.

Having used a foam stamp, this student then takes a candle to add the more classic "dripping" effect known in batik.

Weighing options! With batik - you only get one time to get it right! It's not a forgiving technique!