A Moveable Feast in Zagreb: Tallinn with Middle Schoolers

Once again, Sam and I had the privilege of taking a group of middle schoolers to the CEESA Cultural Arts Festival this spring. Last year it was in Moscow, this year it was in Tallinn, Estonia. This trip also fell exactly 3 days after our trip to Paris. As you may have read in my previous post, I was still getting used to this whole pregnancy thing. So I was pretty nervous about how I would do at this point, taking 6 middle schoolers to another country. It's pretty nerve wracking to be in charge of other people's children, especially when you are taking them across borders, through airports, and in airplanes.

This year we had a group of 6 boys, 3 from 6th grade, 3 from 7th grade. And they were just lovely. I mean you really couldn't ask for a better group of kids to take. The festival involved taking a tour of the Estonian film museum, learning how to do stop motion films, and a tour of an air and sea museum.

The task this year was to make a stop motion film. The kids worked so hard, creating a script, making the backdrops, creating the characters. And the end product is just hilarious, at least if you understand "The Shining" references. For some reason, a few kids were really into that movie at the time, so there are a lot of references to it. Here's the link to watch the stop motion film. http://vimeo.com/93014121

It's really a great experience, for the supervisors and the kids. The kids get to stay with host families and do all kinds of fun activities. We were able to go out to dinner a couple of times with the other supervisors from the other schools: Sofia, Budapest, Moscow, Helsinki, and Warsaw. The traditional Estonian meal included deep fried cheese balls as well as pig ears. And yes, even as a queasy pregnant lady, I tried a bite of pig ears. So now that I've tried them, I never have to do THAT again.

The trip turned out to be really fun. I didn't feel great, but was able to take some breaks throughout the day. It's another opportunity that I never would have expected, but am so grateful to have experienced.
Here's another video that Sam created of our trip. http://vimeo.com/93363589