HSC Bensonhurst Senior Center HOME Project.15 12/02/2021

 


HSC Bensonhurst Senior Center

HOME Project

Blog 15 12/02/2021

It was great to be back after Thanksgiving and to check in with our students to see how they celebrated. They were of course busy finishing their homework, creating their houses mobile. What a creative and inventive collection of their artistry we shared over zoom. Stella incorporated the American flag into her house design and added a resident - the crocheted rabbit So Sim made for her! There was a bird nestled on one roof and a flower on another. Susanna’s 5 houses balanced perfectly. One roof featured scalloped edges reminiscent of a Swiss chalet. Lao Yu created a unique Traditional Chinese house in a hexagonal shape with curved roof from the corners of which hung purple beads. She added a circular Welcome sign which reminded us of Tibetan prayer wheels. Sook Fong added a ting strawberry charm to the tassel hanging from one of her houses. She wrote a tiny red scroll and added it to the door. Pun is so proud of her creation she gave it a name - “My Own House”. 

Ru Ping used red thread to tie off her houses to the bamboo poles and added jade and gold good luck charms as weights. Hui Fen’s mobile is like a collection of fairytale houses, with flowers she creed herself and other cheerful and colorful whimsy, including 1 house with a conical roof. So Sim added lots of tassels to create a colorful moving mobile. Under 1 house she added a red Chinese lantern. Jing Wei added her house number to the red door with yellow trim. The colorful tassels swayed below vertical, and diamond shaped lucky charms.

As a warmup we thought of an everyday activity we do every morning and broke the action down into 10 mini actions or beats. When spotlighted, each student showed us their morning routine, massaging their head and face, stretching and yawning, checking messages and calling friends, putting on clothes, and making a cup of tea. 

In today’s class students made the first page of their Book of Home. Using the same template, they trimmed it and chose colored cardstock to cut out their house. Instead of cutting outdoors and windows, this time they added them using patterned paper or colored cardstock. After putting the house together, they added a penny to the roof to make it close more easily when glued into the page. Next, we brainstormed what this house reminds them of or what home means to them, such as love, family, a butterfly, or mountains. They chose colored cardstock for their base page and then experimented with tissue, patterned paper, or magazine images to create a collage. We will teach them how to glue the house into place next week. For homework they will complete their base page.

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