Grandparents’ Day

In this workshop the celebration of grandparents becomes an important opportunity for children to discover their family history and become aware of their roots.
The centrality of this research is not only historical or pedagogical but also plays a vital role in the definition of the child’s identity,
In this process, he finds solid references to understand where he comes from and terms of comparison in which to recognize his own uniqueness.

Performance

This workshop is split into four distinct phases.

1) Research

As knowledgeable investigators the children will question their parents in order to gather salient information about their grandparents’ lives: Where were they born? What were their parents’ names? Where did they meet?…
This phase is cultivated in advance in the week before the laboratory to give the children time to collect all the necessary information.

2) Illustration

Once we have obtained the information on the most relevant facts of the life of grandparents, we proceed to the drafting of the tables.
Over the course of two afternoons we created both illustrations and narrative captions to be used during the kamishibai performance.
The duration of this phase depends directly on the number of drawings you intend to create. In my experience, four or five tables are adequate for the purpose of the workshop.

3) Binding

At this stage, a rudimentary binding is made by buttoning the boards and tying them with string. In order to pack a real book the children prepare two drawings to make before and back cover.

4) Kamishibai

In this phase, in front of the joined family, I tell the grandparents’ story written and illustrated by the children before officially handing it over to the recipients in the form of book of their lives.