Quarterly Reporting and Training

At the start of Dec. I traveled to Ames again for training in my AmeriCorps program. It was a good few days. I'm glad to have met some other AmeriCorps members in my group and we learned a lot of fun things about working with youth as well as a lot about service learning. Some of it was not applicable to my current position, but it was stuff that I could take after I'm done with the program or use in Sunday school.
My favorite thing was a sticky board. (another example and one more) We used one for service learning brainstorming. It was really cool/magical. [Our facilitator said that they are for sale, but she made hers with fabric, repositionable adhesive spray and duct tape to edge the fabric.] I'm totally going to make one for myself. I think it would be a super cute on my future fridge for to do lists and pictures and notes.

After returning from my training, it was time to submit my quarterly report. The reporting is a way for to show the effectiveness of our programs to our grant-funders. Through filling out my report, I learned that in 3 months I have taught classes to 1,701 youth! Whoa! That is pretty crazy that I've taught so many youth important lessons that they can keep with them for the rest of their lives! Hopefully, the lessons of hand washing, fire safety, and first aid will stick with them for a while, but even so I'm feeling pretty lucky that I got the opportunity to teach this number of youth. I can't believe that by Sept. 2012 I'll have taught about 4 times that number! Whoa! I've also worked with about 46 youth in the Red Cross Clubs! Hopefully, this number will grow a bit through-out the year too.

Some great recent quotes from my classes:

• Me: "What is an emergency?" followed by the standard answers fire, broken bones, sickness etc. 2nd Grade Student: "Shark attack!"
• Me: "What are some things we might see that would help us to know that a situation is an emergency?"  2nd Grader: "A crocodile"
• Me: "What are some things you like to do in the winter?" 4th Grader: "Pelt my little sister with snowballs"

Tomorrow, I'm teaching a Home Alone Class and then one of my Red Cross clubs is having a holiday party at a local elementary school! It should be fun! We have some gifts (including homemade hats and mittens from sweet Red Cross volunteers) and fun games (and hopefully snacks) to help celebrate the holidays!

(P.S. I recently made some sparkly shoes - I'm super proud of them! I'll post pictures soon.)