HSC Bensonhurst Senior Center HOME Project.19 1/06/2022

 

HSC Bensonhurst Senior Center

HOME Project

Blog 19 1/06/2022

Our first class of the New Year! What will 2022 bring for us all? We wish good health, continued creativity, and joy. It was also Pun’s birthday - sort of. It seems her mother made a mistake when she registered Pun’s birth because she had so many children, 7, she couldn’t remember the actual date. Pun told us she doesn’t celebrate personally but remembers her mother and how she suffered in childbirth. Bensonhurst does celebrate its members birthdays, but monthly. Surprisingly today was also registered as  Hui Fen’s birthday but was not the actual date of her birth according to the Chinese calendar. She said it was too difficult to explain her actual birthday to US authorities on her arrival. I also learnt how to say Happy Birthday and Happy New Year in Cantonese. I found it quite difficult as the sounds are so similar to my ear.

In today’s lesson they learnt how to make their kitchen appliances appear 3D by adding doors.  In the warmup we used our imagination to mime opening the door of the refrigerator, cabinet, or oven. We looked inside, selected an object, took it out and mimed using it. Stella opened the fridge and took out the milk for her tea. Jing Wei opened the double doors of a cabinet, took out oil which she poured into the pan for stir fry. Susanna opened a garbage bag and put trash in it. Pun used the toaster and made toast. So Sim opened a drawer and used a knife to cut vegetables. Standing, Ru Ping opened an overhead cabinet and took out the instant coffee. Sook Fong made a cup of ginger tea. Hui Fen opened the refrigerator, took out the meat and cut it up. Lao Yu also opened the refrigerator and took out a small drink carton, removed the straw, punctured the carton, and drank. 

Our wonderfully clever and inventive students used the break to work on their kitchen pop-up page. Hui Fen placed a 2D table on the patterned floor and added plates of food. On the wall she made cabinets full of kitchen objects. Her stove was replete with all the necessary dials. Jing Wei drew lines on textured paper to create the effect of a tiled floor. Pun made a 3D exhaust fan for the stove. In the oven you can see a large turkey roasting. Ru Ping chose to make her appliances in grey cardstock. She drew all the details onto her stove. So Sim also drew lines on the paper she chose for the floor, to create a tiled effect. She used a small piece of orange bubble wrap as the mat. She took a photo of her kitchen cabinets and glued it on the wall. The faucet is manually pulled into place once the page is opened. Sook Fong drew the kitchen cabinets and colored them red and added a red floral mat in front of the sink. Stella is surely the “engineer” in the group. The refrigerator contains shelves which she attached to the back wall so that they lie flat when the page is closed. Her mock-up kitchen looks like the real thing. She tells us she often makes 2 or 3 examples constantly improving upon the last attempt. Susanna used a long box to create a bench, oven, and central sink. This is another clever approach as it ensures all pieces fit on the page. She used this box method to make the kitchen cabinets. Lao Yu’s electric stove looks very realistic. The panel above the stove is 3D made using the box method. She made a refrigerator with a glass door, inspired by those in the supermarket. 

It’s inspiring to see how our students learn from each other and take the skills and techniques they learn in class and make them their own. Surely a teacher couldn’t ask for anything more!

The next room in the pop-up Book of Home is the bedroom. They learnt how to make a simple bed and bunk beds. For homework they will complete their mock-ups, which we expect to be amazing!