Wednesday 15 / January / 2025
Muscat: Children are learning some valuable lessons as Bait Al Baranda Museum’s summer activities went underway yesterday morning with the theme, “Be Green.”
The two week summer programme will see 135 children between the ages of 6 and 16 take part in the highly valuable opportunity to learn environment-friendly ways to reuse materials and take advantage of environmental waste, hence the theme “Be Green.”
Children will participate in two workshops during the first week of the programme, which commenced on 31 July and will continue until 3 August, 2016, under the titles “Once Upon A Time” and “Art of Working with Electronics.”
Maisa Al Abri, trainer in the electronics workshop, said, “The whole aim is to make use of electronic chips and parts from children’s toys and reuse them to make creative art pieces.”
“The workshop is focused on developing the children’s talents in using intricate electronic pieces and get to know the parts,” she added. She also said that this develops and enhances their talents in creating innovative and out-of-the-box art pieces.
Artist Reem Al Rajibi said the “Once Upon a Time” workshop consists of popular children’s stories which raise awareness in a fun way for the kids. “The stories carry messages and meaning as well as encourage the children to preserve the environment in different ways,” said Al Rajibi.
“The children will draw pictures that tell a story about their love for the environment and solutions to preserve it from pollution,”
she added.
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In an earlier interview with the Times of Oman, Amna Al Hamdani, supervisor of Bait Al Baranda Museum,spoke about the importance of encouraging creative arts in the young.
“Arts are one of the natural channels that feed creative talent in children in different aspects, such as art, science and technology,” said Al Hamdani.
“By organising this workshop, the children will take advantage of their time to become more productive during their summer break. It will also develop their talent by teaching them different forms of art,” she added.
According to the Michigan State University Extension, art allows children to practice a wide range of skills that are useful in their everyday lives and also for learning. Children are then able to practice fine motor skills, cognitive development, improve their language skills and math skills.
The Child Development Institute also reported, “Creating art is a fine way for children to make choices and solve problems. Every step involves making a decision: what color to use, how to make a line, what size to make something. With every choice, the object becomes more and more their own.”
Week two of the programme, which commences on 7 August and will run until 10 August, 2016, will also feature two workshops where the children will be taught about recycling wood for art and how to create origami figures.
