Cross-Cultural Workshops will be filled with engaging materials and necessary tools for children to experiment with new ideas and apply skills they have already mastered. Children will explore through planned activities that incorporate language, literacy, art, writing, sculpture, cultural studies, and peace studies. Children will be able to experiment with materials such as play dough, crayons, construction paper, rocks, pasta, ceramics, fabrics (socks) and pencils. We will use materials that encourage learning such as flash cards, picture dictionaries, puppets and postcards. Workshops will be conducted in English with emphasis on cross-cultural issues, sensitivity and context.

Expected outcomes: We will be directing the children toward an understanding of self and identity, of families, social groups, religions, nature, food and geography - all elements of their specific cultures.

Parents are welcome to come and relax; drink coffee/tea and chat with other parents while their children create interesting and useful products.

Targeted audience/participants: Children ages 4-12 from different parts of former Yugoslavia currently living in the tri-state area.

Outreach efforts: Timeline and description of workshops will be included in mailings; We will send members which have children ages 4 - 12 an invitation 2 weeks before each event. Parents of the children that have been visiting Raccoon's Children's Workshops in the past will be contacted by phone and inquiries will be made weather they are still interested to involve their children in raccoon's projects.

3. Proposed time frame for the activity:

Title of the Workshop	Description of the Workshop	Date Saturday 11am
Halloween Workshop	Children will make creative Halloween masks. Each child will tell who their mask represents and we will translate the names to different languages from former Yugoslavia.	10/25/03
Balkan Workshop*	Children will make creative puppets out of socks! Puppets will come alive and introduce the children. Children will share with the group the postcards and photos that they brought (they will talk about where they come from and who they have in former Yugoslavia). Scrap poster with all the postcards and photos will follow as a group project. We will frame the poster and hang it in the Raccoon Space. *please bring postcards personal photos from former Yugoslavia	11/22/03
New Year Workshop	Children will make creative New Year cards. We will translate "Happy New Year" in all the different languages of former Yugoslavia. We will also make tree and room ornaments so they can make their environment festive for the upcoming celebration.	12/06/03
Funky Workshop	We will paint rocks and make beautiful paperweights. Discussion will be about mountains from former Yugoslavia: Alps, Bjelasnica, Avala, Sljeme, Prokletije. We will paint macaroni and other pasta to make beautiful necklaces. We will talk about different food from the regions of former Yugoslavia (hurmasice, gibanica, pita, potica, bos. lonac, sobska salata, pasulj). Children will share what their favorite food from former Yugoslavia is.	1/17/04
Valentines Workshop	Children will make beautiful heart baskets out of paper. The will insert a little Valentine's card (they will be able to do 2 or 3). Children will learn words like: love, hope, joy, caring, goodness, sharing, freedom, gratitude, peace, kindness, friendship in different languages of former Yugoslavia with the help of flashcards.	2/14/04
Spring Workshop	Learn about spring flowers that are significant in region of former Yugoslavia (planika, liljan, panciceva omorika, zvoncki...) Children will sculpt flowers of their choice out of play dough.	3/20/04
Peace workshop	Children will learn how to make origami crane and learn about Sadako's Story and the significance of the 1000 cranes. Children will also participate in a group paper mosaic project - symbol for peace White Dove that will be put on the wall of Raccoon Space.	4/17/04
Mother's Day Workshop	Children will use special water-resistant ceramic paints and decorate plain coffee mugs and white tiles. Their artwork will be a perfect gift for their mothers, grandmothers, aunts or teachers. Children will talk about their mothers, tell us where their mothers come from, why they are so special, what is their favorite food their mother makes.	5/22/04
Father's Day Workshop	Children will use special fabric paints and decorate ties - perfect gift for Father's day. We will also make cards. Children will talk about their favorite sport and plans for the summer. Many of the children will visit former Yugoslavia during the summer and they will share with us what their summer destination will be.	6/19/04

The activities will take place in Raccoon Space. Children will all receive work T-shirts so their clothes won't get dirty. We will also provide drinking water as well as dried fruit and nuts as refreshments.

4. Bios:

Workshops will be lead by Raccoon's Program Coordinator and Social Pedagogue (by profession) Tea Rozman-Clark, who has 7 years of experience doing children's art workshops in Slovenia, Bosnia, Albania and even Africa!

how to find us
43-32 22nd Street, Suite (buzzer) 301 in Long Island City, between 43th and 44th Avenue
subway to 23rd Street, Ely Avenue
o n e subway stop away from Manhattan

This project was made possible by a generous grant from The New York Foundation