Crafting Program in Kampong Speu

Regarding the craft in Kampong Speu, one child had a difficulty to complete the simple task of folding a paper inward, without our staff's help.  Probably it's because he hasn't had the appropriate opportunity until now.

Since the folded part automatically becomes symmetrical, this second craft card also included 2 practical elements, where children could cut out the paper by taking advantage of the symmetrical shape and draw by taking symmetrical shape into consideration.  In other words, our purpose was (1) to have the children experience how a symmetrical shape can be created by folding a piece of paper in half and cutting out one side, and (2) to have them draw a symmetrical picture there.

A simple example of a symmetrical picture is a heart.  An animal's face would have been fine.  In regions where crafting itself is not a common practice; however, children have no basis for coming up with ideas.  So we decided to start by having the children copy the sample (heart-shaped) that we had prepared.

We showed them a sample of a card of a symmetrical shape with 2 semi-circles, which can form a heart.  We also had prepared a few other samples, such as the ones with 1 and 3 semi-circles, and by showing them all for reference, several children cut out shapes other than the heart shape.  But then, since they hadn't cut out the paper (into 3 semi-circle shape, for example) with any particular idea in mind, they had trouble drawing a picture on them.  They were so struggling that we suggested a bouquet of flowers to draw, which solved the problem.   In fact, it was an unexpected opportunity for these children to gain a new perspective.

We didn't have enough time on the day and it ended up like this, but we reflected on that ideally we should have taken the time to ask everyone from the beginning, "What can you draw in a single semicircle?" "What can you draw in this shape?" etc.