Ready to Hand: Saori Philadelphia

The new "Little People Read and Make" group had its first meeting on the deck this morning. We read "Mono Gets A Mask", decorated cotton face masks, learned a hand-washing song ("Tops & Bottoms"), sang songs and learned about "cranky rolls", celebrated our new friend J's 3rd birthday, and finished up with some serious water play. Success!
Next week we'll be reading Jon Klassen's Shapes Trilogy and learn to make simple books for our own stories, wash hands some more, sing some more, maybe have a mini-music session with instruments, and of course, play with water. Which means we'll probably need a new name: the "Little People Read, Make, Sing and Play With Water" group.
There will be a two sessions next week: a morning and an after-nap session. Space is limited (3 families/session) so get in touch if your family would like to participate.
I have a deck safe for gathering and projects, and a basement studio full of art supplies. If you have ideas for similar projects for our smallest neighbors to gather safely, let's talk!

Neighbors with very small children ... Shall we not wait for Covid to finish making it's way through our community, or for the state legislature to figure out how to fairly fund pre-school education in our urban neighborhood. Let's make a start at doing something together for the children!

Ready to Hand Studio is offering a "reading aloud, making together" pilot project for little ones in the neighborhood (over 2 and under 5 years old) . Covid restrictions mean the gatherings have to be much smaller than any of us might prefer, but I have some ideas to move the project forward.

RTH will host 1-hour sessions on the studio deck for 3 families at a time (one parent and one child) on Tuesdays: 9-10 a.m, 11-12 am and 2-3 pm (we are working on offering a weekend session as well). Each session will include a story read aloud and an age-appropriate art project. Masks are REQUIRED for ALL adults and as many kids as will wear them; hand-washing will happen, hand-washing songs will be sung, and social distancing protocols will be observed.

Here's what we have in mind for the next three weeks:
Week 1: "Mono Gets a Mask" (story - face mask theme), and each child can decorate his/her own cloth face mask with textile crayons.
Week 2: "All Kinds of Shapes" (story - based on the Square trilogy by John Klassen; shapes theme), and each child can make his/her own book about shapes (I'll teach the adults how to make very simple books with their little ones).
Week 3: "The Hungry Caterpillar", by Eric Carle (story - numbers theme), and each child can decorate his/her own caterpillar (I'll teach the adults how to make some pretty creative projects out of the simplest of materials).

Ready to Hand Studio is a non-profit community art project, but we have expenses. So participants are invited to contribute a minimum of $15/session towards expenses (that's requested, but not required; no questions asked). We have a Venmo account for this purpose. Space is limited, and advance registration is required. If you want to participate, send a PM SOON and we will send you the paperwork.

We have other ideas about socializing our littlest neighbors and promoting pre-school literacy as widely as possible, and we encourage anyone with similar interests to get in touch so we can build projects and a network together.

The SW CC Mask Project is taking orders for washable, adjustable, comfortable and colorful cotton face covers for neighbors in SW CC and CC. These are simple cotton face covers that help prevent asymptomatic transmission by the wearer; they are not medical grade masks.
We ask a contribution of $10/mask and use the funds raised to purchase supplies for our efforts to provide masks to the community, and especially free masks to needy neighbors.
Requests can be made through the SW Center City Mask Project page -
https://www.facebook.com/groups/swccmaskproject/
NOTE: Be sure to indicate your residential cross-streets when you ask to join the group.
Requests are limited to one household, 2 masks/person. Masks sizes available: XS (3-5 yrs), S (6-10 yrs) and L (everyone else).

アメリカのフィラデルフィアの
SAORI工房のレスリーさんが
大阪チャチャチャバンドを訪ねて来られました。来日して京都の川島テキスタイルで2カ月に渡る勉強終了。念願だった大阪チャチャチャバンドの演奏に大歓迎してくださいました！弁護士、ソプラノ歌手、SAORI工房主宰と言う多才で明るいパワーある女性！！
発声練習の手ほどきを受けて
みんな楽しんで腹式呼吸のコツを伝授して貰えました。お陰で今週末の支援センター中のクリスマス会での演奏もパワーアップして頑張って来れそうです！
また、会えます様に！！

How exciting to have recently met multi-instrumentalist Casey Murray, which led me to Creative Ability Development, a movement teaching musical improvisation so similar to SAORI philosophy!

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