SaharaTulip: February 2016

Sunday, February 28, 2016

February Art Party

February Art Party by A Crafty Arab

I just gathered with some friends for an art party to spend a little time together.

I got the idea from a Pinterest Birthday Party one of my girlfriends had last year in her home. I asked her and a few other friends if they'd like to have the same party again but this time at my studio.

A couple of them were able to make it so I got to work getting ready for guests. I think I need to do these parties more often. Since I had a deadline, it was nice to complete so many unfinished projects!

February Art Party by A Crafty Arab

My studio has two areas, a work station and a seating area. We spent some time in the seating area first catching up and drinking tea to get warmed up from the rain outside. Soon the work table was covered with tools, India inks, paper and masterpieces.

February Art Party by A Crafty Arab

I personally had a goal of cutting No Sew pillows for an upcoming girl scout event. My pile looked like this when I got started.

February Art Party by A Crafty Arab

I was able to get this much done by the time our party was over.

February Art Party by A Crafty Arab

We listened to some great tunes, drank lots of tea and shared delicious healthy popcorn.

February Art Party by A Crafty Arab

And by the end of the afternoon these were some of the art masterpieces created.

February Art Party by A Crafty Arab

We've already decided we're going to do it again soon.

Friday, February 26, 2016

Passport Club

Passport Club by A Crafty Arab

Once a month, my husband volunteers at my daughter's school to help with passport club. I tagged along today to take some photos to tell you about this amazing program our school offers.

We receive all of our materials from the The Passport Club, which has a fantastic tag: Give them the world.

From their home page:

Since the 1950s, the number of countries in the world has almost doubled, and our connections to people and places has increased at an astonishing rate. However, many schools currently use outdated geographic material and fall short of preparing students for the integrated world in which we live. The Passport Club is an individualized, sequential, geography enrichment program for elementary students that is cost effective and provides updated materials for classrooms. Its main purpose is to help students learn some, or all, of the world’s countries over the course of a school year and instill the curiosity to learn more about our fascinating world. It meets essential academic learning requirements for elementary social studies and has built-in differentiation for students. Finally, it promotes strong parent and community involvement in the school!

Our school has been fortunate enough to do this program for a numer of years, all started by a parent volunteer who wanted her kids to learn more about the world.

The kids are not graded on this extracurricular activity. There are some teachers who take time in their curriculum to learn the monthly countries, but it's the parents who get the kids ready for passport club at home.

At the start of each school year, each child is given a passport and a blank map. The maps are taken home for studying, but the passports stay in the classrooms with the teachers until the end of the year.

Passport Club by A Crafty Arab

Each month, the children also go home with a map with 5 levels for them to learn. One side of the map is blank but includes a pronunciation guide on the side.

Passport Club by A Crafty Arab

The other side has all the countries labeled.

Passport Club by A Crafty Arab

Level 1 is usually the easiest and comprises of countries that are bigger and/or more well know. For example, in September when the kids started, it was a list of the five continents. The kids are not graded on this extracurricular activity, and they are told it's optional for them to participate. However, they are also expected to at least get Level 1 every month, so if they don't know Level 1, they will get a lesson during passport check day.

The levels then get harder, ending in Level 5, which are the capitals of countries in Level 1. For February, these were the Levels.

Level 1 – India, Colombia, Romania, Chile, Libya

Level 2 – Cambodia, Botswana, Ivory Coast, Denmark, Oman

Level 3 – Andorra, Cuba, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Belarus, Guinea- Bissau

Level 4 – Laos, Marshall Islands, North Korea, Syria, St. Lucia, Malta, Kosovo, Swaziland, Togo, Vanuatu

Level 5 – New Delhi (India), Bogota (Columbia), Bucharest (Romania), Santiago (Chile), Tripoli (Libya)

A few days before passport check day, the entire school gets involved in helping the kids get ready. It's mentioned in the daily school announcements and parents are also emailed.

There are even reminder signs put out days in advance by the entrance.

Passport Club by A Crafty Arab

Our school checks kids once a month on a Friday starting 8:30pm. Each teacher is on a timed schedule to bring her kids from her classroom into our cafeteria where the volunteer parents are waiting.

Once the kids get to the parent volunteer, they open their passport to that month and the volunteer starts at the top Level 1 and works their way down to Level 5, seeing how far through the levels the kids can locate what's on the list.

Passport Club by A Crafty Arab

Once they are done, they get a stamp for each level they completed. They may choose any stamp they'd like to tape to the blank visa side as they are waiting for classmate's turn. The parents pre-print these stamps on photography paper to hold their crispness but also make them a little stiff so they look like real stamps. This part is optional and some kids put one stamp and others try to cover their page with visa "stamps".

Passport Club by A Crafty Arab

If they get to Level 5, the volunteer adult rings a bell next to them and everyone in the room cheers. At the end of the year, any student that makes it to Level 5 in every month gets a special certificate, a travel related prize and special recognition in front of the whole school.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about our Passport Club and maybe you are inspired to start your own at your school.

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

3rd Grade Art Lesson: Embellished Faces Inspired by Marita Dingus

3rd Grade Art: Embellished Faces Inspired by Marita Dingus by A Crafty Arab

Today in our art room we created embellished faces inspired by the artist Marita Dingus.

Since this lesson was going to be kinetic and involved moving parts, I asked for backup from my community. I'm so filled with gratitude for those who took time out of their day to come out to be with the kids.

D did a great job (wo)maning the paper table and helping all the kids that wanted to include paper embellishments on their faces.

3rd Grade Art: Embellished Faces Inspired by Marita Dingus by A Crafty Arab

I also have wonderful fellow art docents who heard my call for help and came in to be extra hands.

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After a quick run-through of our power point from last time, I showed the kids a Marita Dingus artwork that is in our City Hall. She created it in 2006 as part of the Volunteer Arts Award. It is called Floating through Life and has a photo of me as a child, taken in Libya. I was serving on the city art board at the time the piece was commissioned and a group of us anonymously sent Marita photos of ourselves as children as requested. She picked my photo and I'm not sure why, but it's pretty cool that a part of my past has been commemorated from my birth hometown to my adopted hometown.

Floating Through Life by Marita Dingus

Since the kids were attaching their discarded materials with wire, ribbon and glue, I was worried the paper would tear once the photo piece was hung. Earlier in the day I had made photo copies of all the children's photos, along with the teacher of course, and my wonderful volunteers mounted them on thicker paper.

3rd Grade Art: Embellished Faces Inspired by Marita Dingus by A Crafty Arab

I got lucky earlier in the day when I was able to pick up some lanyard hooks to attach to the top of the faces. I was trying to figure out how to make the faces kinetic, since Marita loves movement in her art, and an angel from my Facebook Buy Nothing group posted some for free. What a save!! I am so grateful for the community that is raising these kids.

After a few pointers on how to attached their discarded materials to their baby faces, we let them get to work. Here are a few of the masterpieces.

3rd Grade Art: Embellished Faces Inspired by Marita Dingus by A Crafty Arab

To see more of our art lesson plans from this year, visit

3rd Grade Art Lesson: Celebrating Black History Month with Marita Dingus

3rd Grade Art Lesson: Contrast Colors in African Dancers

3rd Grade Art Lesson: Kinetic Kites (Part 2)

3rd Grade Art Lesson: Secondary Colors with Calder

3rd Grade Art Lesson: Color with Mondrian

3rd Grade Art Lesson: Lines

To see more lessons plans for different grades, visit

Crafty Arab Art Lessons

Be sure to join us in two weeks!

Monday, February 15, 2016

Happy President's Day 2016 (and Vacation Recap)

Happy President's Day to those that celebrate it in the US.

Today is a day that Americans use to honor our highest elected official. This holiday started as a celebration of President George Washington's birthday, which was February 11th. Then people started including President Abraham Lincoln's birthday, which was February 12th.

Now, it's a holiday commonly used to commemorate all past United States presidents and is held on the third Monday in February.

To most families, it's a break from the school route and is seen as an opportunity to get out of dodge for a few days. Since I am naturally drawn to water, I called (who am I kidding, I mean emailed) some girlfriends, we packed kids/husbands/gaitors/snacks and off we went in search of adventure. Yeah, I didn't say sun because we knew without packing plane tickets, we weren't going to find that for two days. We settled for looking for indoor fun.

We found it in Hoodsport, WA.