Summer Reading Program at the New Albany Boys and Girls Club
Please enter our discussion here regarding your ideas for the summer reading program at the New Albany Boys and Girls Club.
We have it scheduled from August 1 to August 5, 1-3 PM each day. More than likely not everyone will be able to make every hour every day given our busy schedules. That's no problem. Any help you can give is appreciated, even if it is just on the planning end.
Reading is not my thing (although I can read), so your ideas are needed! We're talking about children, ages 3-18. We can split them up in any number of ways in order to target specific grade ranges.
We have it scheduled from August 1 to August 5, 1-3 PM each day. More than likely not everyone will be able to make every hour every day given our busy schedules. That's no problem. Any help you can give is appreciated, even if it is just on the planning end.
Reading is not my thing (although I can read), so your ideas are needed! We're talking about children, ages 3-18. We can split them up in any number of ways in order to target specific grade ranges.
posted by adam at 12:48 PM
6 Comments:
A wonderful opportunity to fulfill our mission of service! Although I and my family will be out of state on these dates – I would very much like to help organize the effort and complete the upfront work (planning, materials, I have a pretty good lead on some quality, free books, etc…). Is there a plan in place from last year or are we beginning anew?
Good ideas so far. We will probably want to split them up into three groups. What Rachel and Jay propose will work really well for the middle level of kids, I think--although I'm open to considering it for the younger and older kids as well. We've also discussed developing some sort of mentoring/tutoring reading program where the older kids would serve as mentors/tutors for the younger kids (This might get at Jay's idea of teaching them to fish).
In the past, I've taught a 641 special topics course with a service learning component in which we have run a reading program at this boys and girls club. With the younger and middle kids, we worked in small groups on reading activities--connected it to art (as they have a nice art room) and helped them with particular troubled spots. Typically we supplied all the books and supplies.
We never really got to reading with the older kids--instead, we tried to reach them on a conversational level to try and talk about their lives. Milton and Angela did this with me last year. I would invite their thoughts here as well.
At our May 15 meeting we had some good discussion regarding more possiblities of what we might due at the Boys and Girls Club August 1-5.
It sounds like the theatrical performance for the middle-aged kids (9-12) had the most traction. It was suggested that perhaps we allow some amount of choice of book for them. Upon reflection, i'm not sure if this is entirely feasible given the time-frame as we may want to create some of the props before we get there in order to save time.
For the younger (4-8) and older (13-17) kids, the idea of having the older kids read to the younger ones still seemed like a good one. Other ideas surfaced, though. With the older kids, we might so some type of photography journal where the kids could have disposal cameras to document their lives--perhaps they could write a story/poem/song to go along with that and present on Friday? Some thematized reading project with the younger kids was also suggested, perhaps with stations of different activities related to the stories.
It was wonderful to be with you all on the 15th!
For the little ones, I like the idea of multiple book themes – one for each day (as those little attention spans are pretty short!). Several books could be selected and multiple activities can be developed for the kiddos to participate in. I am more than willing to put this together (however as Bob reminds me…”You won’t be there!”)
I would enjoy some book suggestions, and a description of the children that we will serve.
Let me throw my support of the “photo-journal” idea for the older kiddos – I think this is a great idea!
Terrific ideas Brian, and I have several books that might go along with that theme….The Magic Fish series to name one. I will begin working to put together some books and activities next week (June 6th – 10th). Why don’t we hook up during one of those days and work together? Your kiddo could come along as a technical expert!
I think my gifts are with older teens however I will help because reading is a major key to the future. Perhaps I could do photograph the kids for take-home documentation.
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