Volunteer Pizza Party

Yesterday we had a huge pizza party for volunteers and their guests here at Skyline. James, Wendy, Mikaela, Chelsea and I spent all day getting ready- we had bulletin boards for the youth program and the computer lab with all kinds of pictures of the kids and volunteers, I made a bulletin board for our National Youth Service Day, James and I made cards for our volunteers with pictures of the kids and their quotes inside. The quotes are great:

“I like volunteers because they come from their home for no reason to help me.” -Ahmed
“Volunteers work hard without getting paid. Volunteers help me with computers and homework. That’s all.”-Mohamed
“I think volunteers are good in here because they help people with their Plato and I’m tired…”-Abdulmalik

Two of the kids, Abdul and Huy, came to the party and taught the guests how to make paper cranes. Huy said that the secret to making paper cranes is HAVE PATIENCE. I would guess that's a secret to a lot of things.

We all had pizza from Pizza Luce and made cranes and James and his dad played music... it was so much fun! But today it's back to work. At least it's nice out, rainy and cold... oh wait that's not rain. It's snow. Good thing I biked today.

The Plato Wall of Fame

Today I made a huge poster that says "PLATO", and then in little letters on it it says, "Wall of Fame". We're going to put pictures of the kids who earn certificates for completing assignments in Plato at Skyline up on it- we have three or four now I think! It looks really good, even it it's a little crooked...

CHH Earth Day Clean-up

Well, keeping with my new tradition of forgetting the most important papers when I go to work, I forgot the awesome stickers (okay I just printed labels... but they are cool! They say "Official Clean-up Kid" and have little pictures on them- in color!) at my house. I'll have to give them to the kids on Monday.

The clean-up project itself was AWESOME! We had a ton of kids come down (maybe... 12?) and some adult residents (5 or 6) cleaning up trash, raking leaves, and making things look nice. The best things we found: a dead squirrel, $5 monopoly money, one dollar real money, half a barbie, and tv cable. Faith's friend Danielle from WA came and taught the kids how to weed and they pulled out tons of trees from the gardens. Guess no one had weeded in a long time...

We celebrated with donuts, coffee and juice in the Advantage Center afterward, and I took cute pics of all the kids cleaning. An overwhelming success! YES, Earth Day!

Corps Day

Today we kicked off the first blog/newsletter/reflection committee check-in for the corps. Nary posed a question to the corps: what is one change that you have made at your site, and how did it go? I think the corps really got into the question, and it sounds like there's a lot of great stuff going on.

I talked about how I had put the rules on the desktop at Skyline, and how some teens were complaining about all the stuff you couldn't do in the lab. I told them that it was against the rules to have fun, and one of the teens closed his web browser and pointed to the rules, arguing that nowhere on there did it say "no having fun". I said, "you got me- I guess you can have fun... as long as you follow all the other rules!" I feel that it was a win-win situation.

Also, after the ICC Spring Fun Day, we had a civic engagement training- because no one knew what constituted civic engagement or how many we had to do. It was very informative, even though Kim, who had a bulk of the presentation, was sick and couldn't come. Good work, Pa Chua and Kristen!!!

ICC Spring Fun Day!

Whew! Spring Fun Day sure was fun!!!
I'm kind of glad that it's over though- because all those planning meetings, and who's bringing what... I carried like a million pounds on my bike to Powderhorn Park. I remembered everything I needed for Spring Fund Day- and left my timesheet at home, along with a bill for the online class I'm taking that needs to make it to the CTEP office. Way to go, me.

I think CTEP needed a fun day- I played Apples to Apples and then Cranium with other CTEPers- we found out that Linda is the best darn DNA sculptor probably in all of AmeriCorps, and despite my inability to guess "cocktail dress" from Pa Chua's elaborate acting, she draws a great palm tree with her eyes closed! I think my favorite part was when the gang playing Who Wants to be a Millionaire asked us (the audience!) for help. Just like on the show! It was great.

Kristen, Megan, Linda, Pa Chua and I tried to play frisbee but it was so windy and sort of raining that it was kind of hard. I had a ton of fun though, it was relaxing to get together and not have to employ our "meeting stamina". Powderhorn is super nice too, we walked around the lake and laughed at the ducks. Silly ducks, and their egg laying.

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

Take it Down

So today Chad came to talk to the teens at CHH about Set it Up, the teen TV show at SPNN. Well none of the teens showed up, they haven't been showing up lately. I called them all, and some of them told me they'd be here. I put up tons of flyers and everything. I'm starting to think that they aren't interested! I mean who doesn't want to be on TV? (That's what the flyers advertised...)

Oh well. My favorite twins in the world Adriana and Briana came (unfortunately they aren't teens yet...), and we watched the movie that we checked out of the library during the last teen computer field trip- Bambi Meets Godzilla. Then they put on an amazing and hilarious show and everyone was on the floor laughing.

I guess we'll try again some other month...

Other April Stuff

4/8 CTEP Corps Day
We had our check-in and all that, then committee time. The bog/newsletter/reflection committee got a lot accomplished: we decided on our first blog reflection activity, brainstormed about our newsletter and 'end of the year compilation" and worked out a plan of what each of us are going to do before next meeting.
I'm a little disappointed that people still haven't sent me their directory info- and it kinds stinks for the people who did it right away because we all have to wait! I'm not sure what to do- I don't want to do a written thing because then one of us will have to type it up and that's just lame. Sigh...

We also did diversity training- which, despite the name conjuring images of corporate white men talking about diversity, was a good discussion about what diversity is and what effects how we feel and act about/towards people who are different from us. We got into the DMZ for government programs- God- and it got kinda heated. For me, there's always this weird tension with the mention of religion or spirituality at work- I've been trained that work is not the time and place for those discussions. Especially when you are part of a government program. It really got me thinking about why that is, because I think that rule is in place so that people don't feel discriminated against for whatever religion/spirituality they associate with. But at the same time, our group has been encouraged to get to know each other and we've delved into the depths of who we all are every other week. For many people that's a huge part of who they are, which I think when we are talking about ourselves was fine- we included it in our personal journeys and what not. But I don't think we can have trainings on that kind of thing. I'm not really sure what happened.

ICC
4/14 I went to the ICC meeting at Powderhorn Park, and we mostly finalized the plan for Spring Fun Day. I think it will be a lot of fun! I guess it was appropriately named because it certainly is spring...
We also reviewed the mission statement of the ICC and I think it's actually the first time that I had heard it, having started late. I'm going to have to get my hands on it I think.
We figured that we have been doing a good job of following the mission, and we also started brainstorming the end of the year celebration because there is no Summit this year. Hmmm...

Sky Teen Computer
I planned all this great stuff for the teens at Skyline, but they don't seem interested. They come down for open teen lab, and come summer they won't have programs so I think we shoud do something cool in the lab. I'd like to get to know some of them so that we can maybe do a video project with the mobile lab but I don't know at this point...

National Youth Service Day!

So today is the ACTUAL National Youth Service Day, but since the youth program and computer lab staff (i.e. Wendy and James- VISTAS- and Mikaela) don't work on Friday, we had our event yesterday.

IT WAS SO RAD

We did a kid clean-up outside of Skyline with over 20 kids! I sent away for the NYSD info from Youth Serve America, and registered our project online with them. I doctored up the posters with our own Skyline Kid Clean-Up posters, and we told all the kids about it the day before. I used the YSA service learning curriculum guide to plan the activity, and we followed the PARC model of service learning- Preparation, Action, Reflection, and Celebration. I drew a little map thing on the blackboard in the youth room. I also made stickers (okay I used Publisher's label maker) that said "Official Clean-Up Kid that the kids loved.

When we started, we talked about why cleaning up trash was important and why we should take an active role in our community. We talked about the rules and what was going to happen for the whole project.
Then, we went outside and cleaned up trash! It was so awesome, the kids were so into it and picked up tons of cigarette butts and posed for pictures discouraging smoking because it's gross. the kids are such hams for the camera so I got great results.
We ended at the playground and played with the kids for a while- I beat everyone on the swingset. Even though 'it's not a competition' I still won. Ha.

We went back to the youth room and had a discussion about where we think the trash came from and we determined that the adults and teens shouldn't smoke but if they were going to they should throw away their butts. The kids thought of some great ideas for making signs to go outside where we found the most butts, so I feel another service project coming on!

We talked about volunteering and how that day we were all volunteers in our community, and the kids really made the connection of what it means to be a volunteer. They said that it was fun and we made a difference, and they realized that that was exactly the reason that the volunteers (we had two out there with us) come to Skyline.

Then we had yogurt parfaits and everyone was happy.

It was an overwhelming success, tell you what! next, I'm going to show the kids how to put the pictures on the computer and a group of us are going to write up a page to put in the monthly newsletter that will go out in May so everyone at Skyline will know that the kids volunteered in their community (this is the computer part- I am in CTEP after all!). It's going to be great.

CTEP Poem

oh oh
CTEP
go go
CTEP
computers rule
for more than school
I'm no tool!
I'm in CTEP

RAM RAM
CTEP
spam spam
CTEP
I'm online
it's mighty fine
I'll type 9!
I'm in CTEP

Yeah, collaboration!

I had two- count 'em: two- collaboration meetings this week!

I went to SPNN to meet with Chad this Monday and he gave me the tour, showed me where the magic happens and I kept thinking, "I should bring my teens here!". So we set up a time where Chad is coming to Cathedral Hill to talk to the teens about Set It Up- the teen TV show at SPNN- and then we are taking a field trip to watch the taping of the show! I'm so excited. He also hooked me up with all these summer things to do for teens. I hepled him set up a blog and we enjoyed some office beer.

Then on Tuesday, Linda came over (I was at Skyline) from the Dept of Numan Rights and we talked about some Somali focus groups to assess translations to see if they make sense. Hopefully we can set it up with one of the ESL classes or something. She also has a video we might show at Skyline about human rights. Woo!

I might be all collaborated out.

Spring Break at Cathedral Hill!

Spring Break RULES because there's no school!

On Monday of spring break, Faith and I took a couple kids down to the Capitol to meet with their state senator. She was really nice and took a lot of time to answer our questions, and then we ran into one of the studdy buddies who works at the capitol! It was neat because right after we met with the senator we saw her on the TV in the office- she was on the floor presenting a bill. We asked the kids what they thought happened before TV and they looked kind of confused. I think they also felt kinda cool having talked to someone ten minutes ago who is now on TV.

On Thursday, we had planned to take teens to the Minnesota Museum of Modern Art for an exhibit that used a lot of technology, but it was closed so we took Adriana and Briana to the library instead. A librarian was having toddler time and reading books to a toddler and her mom, and the girls (the funniest twin 11 year-olds you'll ever meet) were totally into it- when "If You're Happy and You Know it" came around the girls were singing, clapping... Then these twin toddler boys showed up- they were maybe 2- and the girls were playing with them and asking them questions. It was awesome. We checked out Bambi Meets Godzilla- a video of some old weird cartoons, and a muppet arts and crafts book. Then we went out to Cossetta's for pizza- it was the best birthday ever!
Adriana and Briana are so great. They laughed and quoted the movie Undercover Brother the whole time- at exactly the same time and with exactly the same motions and evertyhing. Faith and I now know every line without having seen it- but we heard it in stereo! At the end of the trip we walked back to Cathedral Hill and the girls said, "bless you for taking us on this field trip! We had so much fun and thank you!" and if I ever have a bad day in CTEP I will just think of those girls and how I think I should be blessing them.

Kids e-mail

We've been having problems with kids sending nasty messages to each other, and also getting inappropriate spam in their yahoo and hotmail accounts. So I tracked down a safe kids e-mail service called gaggle- like the geese. www.gaggle.net
It's pretty cool- in addition to spam filters that don't let things like porn in, it's set up so that I (as an administrator) have a word list. If kids write words in their e-mail that are on that list (like swear words!), the e-mail gets sent to me and not to the other kids.

I created accounts for all the kids that I could think of that were regulars in the lab, with the help of their Plato accounts (first and last names!) and Wendy. I printed up little papers with everyone's username (first name and last initial) and password- I just picked random short words- and folded and taped over the password. I made it sound like James Bond about the password- I don't want them all knowing each other's (they would tell each other yahoo and hotmail for some reason or another!) so I made sure to make it a big deal. They love that too, because it's a secret!

I went over the basics for all the kids- how to get to the webpage, put in username and password, get to the inbox, compose, reply and the directory. I had sent all the kids a message asking them what their favorite thing at the science museum was or what their favorite part of spring break was so I showed them how to 'reply'. Then for some of the kids that are more familiar with e-mail, I showed them that if they wanted to write to another Sky kid, the directory had a list of everone's address. They loved it! I've gotten several e-mails from kids that I don't think use computers for anything but Plato and games before. We had several volunteers that really did the bulk of the work too because I would explain it to all the kids, then there were at least four of us to go around and show the kids and do some hands-on one-on-one learning. It went so well!

I'm very excited about it. The kids that didn't come the first time are starting to hear about it from the other kids, so they come to get their user name and password. They are also starting to ask things like how to send links! I demonstrate with www.homestarrunner.com
The kids really get into that too. Da e-mail, da e-mail, wah wah, da e-mail...

Science Museum Field Trip!

Yesterday we took a group of Skyline kids to the Science Museum of Minnesota. Mikaela organized it, and I helped her out by making the flyers for volunteers to be chaperones, and the two of us went to the museum last week to make a guide for all the chaperones- to make sure they don't miss anything!

I had four kids in my group- Huy, Fatuma, Hassan and Aisha. My group was AWESOME. Before we left, Huy was telling me that his favorite animal is the pig because he was born in the year of the pig. I told him I was born in the year of the rooster, and he said, "Oh so you are like, 24". I was dumbfounded, and said, "tomorrow, Huy!" He said, "Oh! Congratulations!" I just couldn't believe that he figured that out so fast. Most of the time I don't even know how old I am.

We had such a great time- my kids were fascinated by the mummy, and all the dead animals. They kept asking me if each one was real. They also really got into the computer exhibits- we did an experiment and isolated DNA in the cell lab by following a procedure on a computer, there were computer activities all over the experiment gallery and monitors for various bodily functions in the human body exhibit.
Huy was looking at a machine that read electrical signals in your arm and displayed them on a monitor, and we had a good time playing with the harmonics monitors above the keyboard.
Hassan showed me that he could drive the Mars Rover and was really into this anti-smoking rap music video.
Fatuma was a master of studying motion (calculus!) with a little car that was tracked on a computer, and also was relentless in persuading me to get the computer to read my blood pressure (it's a little lower than average, which is normal for me).
Aisha was always off sitting at some computer just figuring everything out. They also thought it was neat that there was a Perigrine Falcon that lived on the smokestack near the museum- you can see the nest out the window and the birds flying over the river. Then there's a camera in the nest so we can see the eggs!

The kids were so full of questions and were so engaged that we ran out of time but we had such a blast- I wish we could go every week!