The key is to keep things simple. I’ve taught people of all ages and abilities and have a knack for getting people who think they can’t learn things to learn! And I’m all about DIY while on a super tiny budget.
LANGUAGES
- French all levels
- Basic Spanish
- Basic Mandarin Chinese (and writing)
SEWING
- Level 1 – Pillows, bags, simple stuffed animals, scrunchies
- Level 2 – Simple clothes like skirts and dresses, knit shirts without buttons or collars
- Level 3 – Flamenco skirts and costumes
MUSIC
- Guitar chords
- Ukulele chords
- Singing all styles of music while accompanying yourself (or others)
- Music for children
- Foreign songs
PARTY PLANNING Need ideas for how to do a theme party? DIY and on a budget? These are just some of the ones I’ve had for children and adults:
- Pirate treasure hunts
- Neon glow parties (including painting objects and making murals that glow under black lights
- Single room Haunted Houses (I’ve done more than 10 in my classroom at school, w/entrance fees)
- Escape rooms at home
- Alice in Wonderland
- Dragon hunting parties
- Tropical tiki parties
- Moroccan parties
- Vintage old time photo parties
- Cocktail and mocktail making competitions
- Farm to table dinner and drink competitions
- At home Carnival
COSTUMES
- Mermaid and pirate
- Six-armed Shiva, the Indian god
- A Greek sphinx
- A shaman
- An Alice in Wonderland caterpillar
- Medusa
- Peacock
- Spider
- Flamenco long-tailed “bata de cola” dress (it wasn’t a costume, though–I used it in performances! And I cheated to make one for my daughter that also worked for a performance together!)
- Wedding dress
ART
- Seurat-style and Van Gogh-style paintings
- Clay sculpting (animals, flowers, sea creatures)
- Fake fossils from clay
- Gyotaku Japanese fish silhouette ink paintings
- Jewelry (necklaces, bracelets, arm cuffs)
- Nature art
DANCE Basic flamenco moves to choreograph a simple dance.
BUTTERFLIES Every summer I raise a dozen monarch butterflies from scratch. And this year my students and I saved dozens of mourning cloak butterflies that were trying to crawl into our classrooms to make cocoons! Students were stepping on them so we made special habitat signs.