Silent Garden

Earlier today I was talking to my Aunt, she pointed out that she was looking forward to my next post.  Well Sandy, here's looking at you!

In other news, this past week has been busy, but fantastic.

This week at the JDC I worked with three very nice teenagers. One I had met with before, and the others were new to me.  When I got there one of the boys was hiding in his room.  when he came out he sat at the table and put his head down. I could tell he didn't want to be there so I hoped he was going to be willing to do my activity.  That morning, when I got to the office I started preparing the Mexican Clay for use.  Since it hasn't been used since last summer, it was a little dry.  Its self-drying clay, but it was still usable.  When I started getting the stuff out for clay, the boy with his head down perked up a bit and looked like this was something he really wanted to do.  It turned out he enjoyed art class and working with clay.  He was telling me about how he was looking forward to the ceramics class he would be taking in the fall.  The rest of the group was great, they all had fun working with the clay and building their favorite animals.  It was a good experience at the Shelter.

The same day I had my Community Connection program.  This week I tied theater with gardening.  We did some theater/forensics warm ups, played "10 Second Objects," Mirrors, and germinated some seeds.   So maybe the seed germination isn't exactly theater related, but it was good to be able to give the youth something to take home.   Next week we will be learning about the water cycle by playing the Water Cycle Game. I love the game, and I hope they do too!

The same evening we had the fourth session of the Summer Gardening Series.  It went pretty well.  The youth learned about soil and the different layers of soil.  They also used old cds to make Deer Deflectors to take home with them.  After that they has some dirt cake, and we sent them outside to harvest the radishes and lettuce in the garden. They seemed to really enjoy it.

As part of the VISTA term, I've been writing a series of articles for the local paper.  Here is the latest one that was published! (If the link doesn't work it means that it cycled off the website.  I don't believe there is any way to retrieve it...so read it soon!)

I have lots to get ready for next week! I think then I'll write about the class I'm taking right now too!

Until then!