WHO WE ARE
Casita provides a unique and personalized program to meet the needs of our children and their families. We create a safe space for your children to connect and be empowered through engaging activities based on love, respect, patience and creativity.
HOW WE STARTED
Denise Kornitz, Casita’s director, is an international professional artist who has lived and performed in Israel, Argentina, NYC and Europe. Her broad experience and knowledge in connecting emotions using different languages together with her passion to work with future generations, inspired her to create a space where she can collaborate with the world for a better education.
Denise then had in her mind that she wanted to take all her knowledge to the next level, using her developed art skills, her expertise in being with children within different workframes and a continuous journey in a constant search for self-knowledge and transformation shaped the outlines of her new projects in NYC.
Denise co-founded a bilingual theater company (English/Hebrew) called Yeladudes, where she created, produced and directed captivating plays where Jewish culture and values were shown.
At the same time, Denise also co-funded with Mariel Sol Casita de Arte on 2012, when a group of moms reached out to her to make an art program for their children in Spanish with a home rotating system. Currently Casita has a variety of afterschool classes, private lessons and more recently an online program was added.
MISSION & PHILOSOPHY
Our mission is to create a safe space where kids can be themselves in a free way and while we are there to walk them through this natural process. In Casita we understand that every child is unique and has his/her own passions, as well as their own time to discover it. We do this through joyful games and playfulness.
By means of a close connection between the instructor and the child, we are all learning to handle our emotions such as excitement and frustration amongst other feelings. In Casita we firmly believe that through love and acceptance we bring happiness into the world and make an impact planting our seed.
OUR VALUES
Respect
We respect each child’s timing; we listen to them. We listen to what their body is telling us because every single one is unique and is unique inside a group.
Love
Love is essential for the project to work, love towards each kid, towards the group and what we do every day.
Patience
We are patient with the timing of every child. For example: when a kid is frustrated with something, our staff will bring the right tools to live their process.
Communication
This is definitely an important key to work with, when we give an honest and open communication, we receive the same and then it creates an atmosphere of harmony and comfort between instructors, parents, nannies and kids.
WORK DYNAMIC
All Casita classes follow a dynamic structure.
As we know, children thrive and feel safe in a structured environment. At the same time, not all days feel the same, and the energy of the children can sometimes change from one moment to the next as well.
As educators, we can perceive those changes, and this is why, while maintaining blocks of structured activities such as story time, arts & crafts, or music, the class flows and adjusts to follow the energy of the children.
Each activity is a moment in a given space to explore the materials and the new experiences.
We work on finding the balance between Casita de Arte's class program and each child's needs in each moment. This means that our instructors are observing the children individually and in the group dynamic and they play around with the class structure in a creative way according to what they need that day, until we find the flow of each particular group.
A DAY AT CASITA DE ARTE'S CLASS
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When the children arrive, we give them a space to be themselves, and we welcome them with a big smile and a variety of toys and different materials to play freely and explore. Our goal is to establish a trusting and loving environment to guide them through each one of their processes.
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Circle Time: This is our welcoming ritual at the beginning of the class to unify, it is a moment for us to recognize each other and connect.
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Music and Singing: We explore our voice and play different rhythms while we learn songs and new words with hand gestures, fun games and all kinds of music instruments. We encourage kids to be loud and silly or quiet and observant.
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Movement: We work with our gross motor skills. We become aware of our bodies, the space and others through dance and games with new challenges for every class. We love to create teamwork activities because we understand how good it feels for kids to be empowered.
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Theater & Vocabulary: We allow our kids to use their imagination without feeling judged. We put up shows and play pretend with puppets and props, so they can learn new vocabulary based on monthly themes which helps them to communicate.
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Arts & Crafts: This is a space for them to channel their feelings. We use our fine motor skills and our creativity to create all kinds of arts and crafts projects.
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Story time: We enjoy the magic of reading and listening to a book. Through different voices and sounds they are creating a whole world in their imagination and finding themselves in the story through the identification.
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Circle Time: This is our goodbye ritual where we express how we felt during the class.
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Un beso y un abrazo, Adiós, Adiós, Adiós!