Audio Puzzles and News: Vacation Games at SMA

In building 10, I couldn’t help but notice a lot of small shoes. Aha, as I suspected, it must be the mini-SMAs, as it’s summer vacation time. Like every year, the vacation games took place at SMA for the children of employees, and this year with the motto ’Audio Drama,’ I just had to take a closer look at.

Many little shoes stands at SMA.

Said and done. In the first room, I found myself standing amidst some 40 children between the ages of 5 and 14. They were all diligently puttering around three tables. From adventure stories to world news to audio puzzles; this year, the kids were all producers, authors and story tellers. This means, working in small teams they got to come up with their own stories, record them, match them to fitting music and put them all together with software on the computer. The kids even got to design their own CD covers. It all looked very professional! All that and with enough time left over to give them a chance for some good old-fashioned friendly roughhousing.

Audio Drama-Premiere

Leon, Alex and David records an audio drama.

“We’re almost finished with our recording,” Alexander Hesse told me. “We just have to add the effects.” Together he and his fellow storyteller, Leon Reitz, created an audio book about Star Wars. The kids got to divide themselves into groups and decide what they wanted to produce. They both told me they were excited about the premiere when everyone’s work would be presented to the parents. As a memento each child received a CD recording of all the projects.

Varied Vacation Program

The children tinkers the CD-Cover.

With the vacation games, SMA offers all employees’ children between the ages of 0 and 14 a widely-varied program for the summer holidays. Seven trainers form the Kleinen Stromer GmbH and three SMA trainees take care of the children. “The kids really do a great job and support each other,” says Selina Schneider, an SMA trainee involved in the program. There are other activities planned for the coming two weeks. SMA kids can take part in an art workshop, fitting to dOCUMENTA, or take a field trip to Edersee.