R&M Cook Fam: Kauai Academy of Creative Arts

Kyleigh spent four weeks this summer at the Kauai Academy of Creative Arts. It is a summer program that has various types of creative classes to choose from. You can go in the morning, afternoon or all day. Kyleigh went for four hours every morning from 8-12. Her schedule included three classes and a snack break. She had to move from one classroom to another to get to each class. I was really nervous about sending her. She has never been to public school, she was going to be switching classrooms and she was the youngest age you could be to attend. They don't separate age groups so her classes were filled with kids several years older than her. On the first day I went and helped her map out her route and meet her teachers. When we were done we still had some time before classes started. She made her first two friends waiting outside the classroom and politely told me she was just fine and I could go now. I waited anyway. I couldn't make myself leave. She chose beading, airbrushing, and draw and paint for her three classes. Her favorite was beading, but it didn't beat airbrushing by much. She made lots of earrings and necklaces in beading and she learned how to sew beads onto fabric for larger beaded pieces. She made a heart necklace piece by sewing beads onto fabric. She also made a really cool 3-D beaded gecko. For airbrushing the teacher encouraged them to bring anything they wanted to airbrush. Kyleigh made shirts for herself and Katelyn and Ridge. They were pretty much the cutest, sweetest shirts ever. She also airbrushed some pillowcases and their final project was a lampshade. Draw and Paint was kind of a bust. They didn't really learn anything about drawing and didn't get much time to paint. The picture below was one that they worked on for almost two weeks, but Kyleigh finished hers in the first day so she didn't get a whole lot out of that class. It is a cool picture though. They had an open house at the end of the four weeks where we got to go have dinner and see/get the projects Kyleigh had been working on. The whole thing was a great experience for Kyleigh. They had to fill out a survey at the end of the four weeks and one of the questions was whether or not they would like to go for 5 weeks instead of 4. She has told us about 6 times that she answered with a YES on that question. She made lots of friends and can't wait until next year.