Glitter galore at Santa's workshop Glitter galore at Santa's workshop (December 23, 2005)

Kids create holiday art at CSMA sessions

By Molly Tanenbaum

Kids cluster around a low table as art teacher Anna Ankhauser explains how to put glitter on a cardboard sleigh to make it look like it's "dashing through the snow." The 5-year-olds chime in with the familiar song.

"It's going to look like it's snowing here in the elf workshop," Ankhauser tells the students, as they hurry off to their own seats to adorn their sleighs with Elmer's glue and white sparkles.

Each year, the Community School of Music and Arts (CSMA) offers holiday camps to elementary school-aged kids around Silicon Valley as a fun activity while school is out of session. The camps are infused with holiday spirit, and at the end of the four days, students will have made gifts to bring home to their families.

This year's camp, held Dec. 19 to 22, offered several morning and afternoon workshops, including "Toy and Giftmaking Galore," "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and "Hogwarts Academy," with separate sessions for kindergarteners through second-graders and for third- through fifth-graders.

In the toy-making class, kindergarteners Roxanne Couch and Hannah Jaques, both students at the Bullis Charter School in Los Altos, decorated their Santa sleighs, to which they will eventually add a ribbon to make a pull-toy, and will fill with miniature paper toys. Both girls planned to give the sleighs as gifts to their respective moms and dads.

"The Christmas spirit just comes with doing these things," said Ankhauser, who has taught at CSMA since 2004 and is an Arts in Action teacher at a school in San Mateo.

The older kids' morning workshop, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," taught by Rosalyn Carson, involves constructing a miniature wardrobe out of a shoebox, in which the kids will hang little fur coats and design a background scene for the back of it. Embedded in the workshop are lessons about foreground, middle ground and background, and other art instruction, as well as a chance to hear excerpts from the C.S. Lewis classic.

Carson, an Arts in Action teacher at Mountain View-Whisman's Monta Loma School, gave students a taste of Turkish delight candy, and taught them how to make fake Turkish delight out of colored clay.

The holiday camps have been around for over 15 years and attract more kids each year, according to Dara Kosberg, CSMA's visual arts associate in charge of the camps. This year there were 116 students, compared with last year's 90, and Kosberg added two more workshop sections to accommodate the enrollment increase.

The camps cost $110 per workshop, and CSMA offers tuition assistance to families who cannot pay the full amount. High school students volunteer as aides in the classrooms to complete their required community service hours.

For parents who missed the chance to sign their kids up for the holiday camps, CSMA will offer a special four-week visual arts intersession for ages four through adult starting Jan. 9, according to CSMA marking and communications director Evy Schiffman.

"This is a great way to take a 'dip' into the arts and try out something such as ceramics, painting, fashion design, bookmaking, collage, and more," she said.

Those who are interested in learning about CSMA's classes and events can call (650) 917-6800, or visit http://www.arts4all.org.

E-mail Molly Tanenbaum at mtanenbaum@mv-voice.com

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