Kawana Club Craziness!

Riis Larsen, Mentor at Kawana Elementary School

Kawana Student with his Story Stick

This Friday I led my first ever club. I chose to do an art project called “Make Your Story Stick”. We sat in a circle and chose an idea for our story; then the leader started it off. Each person would add a piece to the story and it turned into an hilarious tale. We discussed the idea that the story was unique because each person added his or her own idea. I explained that the concept of the Story Stick was to create a piece of art that was representative of your individual self, and that each person’s Stick would be different, just like the story.

A Story Stick is essentially a piece of bamboo wrapped in some colorful material (we used yarn), and then topped with large feathers. The yarn is simply tied and then wrapped, and then tied again at the end. The feathers are glued into place with a hot glue gun. We also used strings of beads to adorn the Sticks, and craft sand and glitter to cover the glue.

The club went well; all the students were able to make a stick. It was a little chaotic, but we were able to manage! It was very important to me to explain to the students about the artistic value of what we were doing, Very fun, a little crazy, but the students absolutely loved it, and of course, so did I.