For the past few months, you have been reading my posts about being in Chinook. I'm sure you've gleaned, with your astute reading comprehension skills, a few of the things I do as a YAV so this month, I thought I would let you in on what it is Sophie and I do in a typical week.
Sunday:
Sunday begins with us attending a church service. Chinook is a bit different as a site because we are sponsored by not one, but four churches. This means that while the Presbyterian Church is considered our home church during this year we also make an effort to attend services at the Methodist, Lutheran, and Alliance churches. Church ends anywhere from 10:15 to 11:30 depending on which service we've chosen to attend and then there is time to relax or prepare for the week ahead. Sophie and I take turns attending worship out at the nursing home on Sunday afternoons. What this entails is passing out songbooks, helping residents find hymns, singing along, and, when the message has ended, passing out cookies and serving coffee to those in attendance. New to my schedule is helping with a Harry Potter-themed bible study with the Lutheran youth group.
Monday:
Monday mornings Sophie and I head over to Meadowlark, the elementary school, where I help in first grade. Some mornings I am helping students write up their "Weekend Windows," helping them spell difficult words and reminding them how to format their sentences (i.e, Capital letters at the beginning and a period at the end). I also take a small group to the back table during workbook time and give them some one-one reading help.
After Meadowlark, we go up the road to the Villa (the retirement home) for coffee, cookies, and conversations with the residents.
My afternoon is pretty free. We used to go over to the high school during the last class period to help tutor in math in the Title Room, but the students have made such great progress that we are no longer needed over there. Instead, I head over to the library and help by shelving books. The rest of my afternoon is free and I take that "free-time" to prepare for Tuesday morning and access what else I need to prepare for the rest of the week.
Tuesday:
Tuesday mornings I head over to the nursing home. For the first hour or so, I wander around and visit with the residents, sometimes its one-on-ones in their rooms and other times it's out by the nurse's station with a group, reminiscing and watching The Price is Right. Then it's time for my bible study. Each week I pick a passage, generally, I opt for ones that I think they will recognize like the Parables or popular Psalms. Some weeks I have really engaged residents, sharing their feelings and thoughts and answering my questions and other weeks I might have half of them fall asleep at the table and nobody says a word but that is why I love it, I never know what is going to happen. I love getting to know the core group who comes and get so excited when someone new wants to join us. During my first week out there, I had about five women come to the study. Now I have anywhere from seven to ten coming regularly, and we're faced with the great problem of running out of space in our room. When the study is over, I sit and visit with them as they finish sipping their coffee.
The afternoon is upon me and I spend the rest of my workday at the food pantry. I get there before the door opens to help restock shelves. Once the door is unlocked, we could serve anywhere from a handful of families over the course of about 3 hours to eighteen families in the first hour. I never know what to expect. My favorite weeks are when the shelves are overflowing with food but unfortunately, that is not always the case each week. When we have families of 10-12 and struggle to pull together enough food, it hurts my soul. But when we can give these large families enough to help sustain them until the next quarter, they are so appreciative and it brings me joy to see their happiness.
Now we are halfway through the week, Wednesday:
Wednesday I am back at Meadowlark for the entire morning. I rotate through small groups and they read some test books to me. Then I help with various classroom tasks: prepping activities, helping with workbook pages, and going to the library to name a few. Then I spend the last hour helping serve lunch and then joining a few of the students while I eat my lunch.
The afternoon brings Sonshine Church School. That's right out here we do "Sunday" School on Wednesday. We have 45 kids grades K-6 coming. They come right after school and have a small snack then we split up into groups for class. I run the 5th/6th-grade class and while they can be quite a handful, I think they might be growing on me. Pastor Maggie has put together a wonderful curriculum, providing the month's topic and bible verses, giving the group leaders creative room for the lesson activities. I've had them do things tissue paper art to skits to making tambourines.
The final Wednesday activity is shared between Sophie and I. We rotate helping at LEAP, a sort of youth group for kids K-6 at the Assembly of God Church. We work with the K/1 group. So, after they sing and dance and hear the bible lesson they come downstairs for a snack and drink and do a craft. We spent the first several months learning about and building the Armor of God. (One of my first graders told me she calls Wednesday her Emsday because she sees me so much.)
Thursday:
Thursday rolls around and I spend my morning working at Funshine, the local preschool. There are six boys in the class and my goodness do they have energy. There is a lot of dancing, wiggling, moving, and noise throughout the morning. Then it's snack time, which means time to wash hands. I don't know if you've ever had to make a preschooler wash their hands but sometimes they can be little pills about it. After snack is playtime which can be in or outside depending on the weather. I am learning to appreciate all the things my parents did for me in the winter: boots, hats, gloves, snow pants, heavy coats, zippers, lost socks... getting ready for playtime outside can take awhile. When we come back in, finding shoes, hanging up coats, taking gloves and putting them in hats and then in hoods, can all take a few minutes and not everyone has mastered patience. Then we head back into the classroom and split the group up for centers. The tasks at the centers can range from practicing numbers and recognizing letter sounds on worksheets and coloring pages to counting pips on dice in a board game and working on fine motor or tactile skills. Once centers are done, it is time to get ready to go home. Backpacks are packed with old art projects and the day's papers and then it's storytime and the morning is done.
I head home for lunch and sometimes a quick nap (preschoolers have more energy than I can keep up with somedays) before going out to the nursing home for activity day. Each week is a different activity. Sometimes it's an art project or sing-along and other days it's more physical, like pool noodle ping-pong or bowling. There's always time to sit back and enjoy pop and chat on the more physical activity days since you don't want to push the residents too hard. Lately, we've been listening to the Beach Boys Greatest Hits and talking about travel experiences.
Friday, the last day of my work week:
Friday is a half-day for Sophie and I. We both go back to Funshine for "Freaky Friday," when the MW class and the TTR class are combined. This means there are now 13 boys all together and the noise and energy level grow exponentially. We break up into centers at the beginning of the day rather than after snack because these are also the days where a big, special activity usually happens. We've made Alligator Headbands, gone to the library for storytime, and gone on a pirate treasure hunt to name a few.
Saturday:
Saturday is a completely free day. I can get my laundry done, read a book, watch a movie, or just hang out with my host family. It's a good day to decompress from the week and reconnect with myself.
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