Lincoln Plaza

Hello Everyone,

Here at Lincoln Plaza we are thrilled and ready for Halloween because that just means its closer to Christmas.  Yea Christmas!!!  Our computer lab has been stripped of all of our Halloween crafts and is ready for the Christmas spirit to arrive.  This season we have decided to step it up a little in the arts/crafts department but as well as in the homework arena.

Speaking of homework, what I've noticed with my students is Tuesday is usually homework day for all of us. My students knock out what they can do on Monday and then Tuesday they all bring in their packets of homework and ask questions regarding what they can't finish. What I've come to find out is, my students struggle in Language Arts and they excel in Math.

So what I have developed, beginning in November, is a word of the week where the students learn a new word every week and I will do fun exercises to help their vocabulary grow. I might switch it up with a sentence of the week where there is a grammar error and they have to find the error and explain it.  I found that many of my students have been saying “ I win you” when we all know win is incorrect.  So starting with a sentence like this for example, I believe they will get into the habit of speaking proper English.  Practice makes perfect.  We aren't just coordinators we are also teachers and helping our students excel in academics and having the mindset of “I am going to college” at such a young age is critical.

Parksdale II

Hello Everyone,

Before we start any sort of activity, i.e. arts/crafts, I ask to see the kids homework for the day...if they're not done I help them out.  It's so important to help our students with good school/homework behavior.  I've been helping my students the most is reading recently...the reality is most of my students have a hard time reading.  I have them bring their own books from school and they have to read for 10minutes everyday.  I also help the students with there Math homework and with so many online resources like Khan Academy, there are really no excuses for not getting your math homework done.  Most of our students here are A & B students so I'm not to worried.  Some other examples of keeping the kids sharp are offering multiplication/addition/subtraction activities, pop quizzes, reading essays, keeping a journal...the list goes on and on.  The trick is to make learning fun and let them know that learning is a part of life...the more you know...

Biola Village

Hello Everyone!  The kids from Biola Village have been very busy with homework and school projects that lately we haven't had time for fun.  So to reward them I am planning a HALLOWEEN COSTUME PARTY next Wednesday!  So far I have a few activities planned: Mystery Boxes, Musical Chairs, Hunting for Candy at the Graveyard (we're using some of the grass area to turn it into a Graveyard) AND SO MUCH MORE...

We're also having a "Halloween Costume Contest" for all ages and we will be giving away prizes to all the kids that participate.  Please enjoy some of the super fun and creative Halloween Decoration photos below...the students have been working so hard on these for the past couple of weeks.

On another note, the kids as well as all the residents here at Biola Village have been going through some major changes lately, all good changes of course!  Lol!  The first one was the management team, which by the way are Awesome!  They have been taking the time to get to know each one of us, which feels great!  Another BIG CHANGE that is happening here at Biola Village is "THE RECYCLING CAMPAIGN!" All the residents including the kids have been participating in this great project that is giving us the opportunity to teach the children why it's important to recycle and take care of our Ecosystem.  We all received a small blue recycling container provided by SUNSET Waste/Disposal Systems.  They also replaced one of our big garbage containers with a recycling one. Hopefully we can all do our part to help reduce waste and better manage our precious resources.

 

Parksdale

Well hello everyone, here is one of my kindergarten students.  As you can see from the photo she is learning her alphabet.  The Internet can provide many fun methods and resources to teach a variety of topics.  The Self-Help blog also provides a great set of tools to access great learning sites.  It seems like kids nowadays have so many wonderful opportunities to succeed in school.

 

Cottonwood Creek

Hello!!!

So much to talk about!  There has been so much madness around here.  A few weeks ago we started by making door hangers that the 4-6th grade girls insisted we make so they can take home and put on their doors.  Simple materials were needed...you will need foam sheets (I used glittery foam sheets,) felt letters and little decorations to personalize your door hanger.  We got a little more into the Halloween spirit and made bats, witches and ghosts...we also cut out chains to decorate our classroom and our windows facing the front of the building.

The following week we made a windsock with a dancing skeleton on it...it took us a couple of days because there were a lot of steps to follow.  We also made a couple of non-Halloween windsocks for a couple of kids that don't celebrate Halloween!  To start with, the kids had to cut out the skeleton parts, the bow ties and color the "Happy Halloween" sign.  Once all those steps were complete glue onto the colored construction paper.  Next, flip the construction paper over and glue/tape the pieces of streamers onto the paper.  Finally take the paper and make it into a cylinder shape and staple it.  Take a hole puncher to make a handle to hang up your windsock.  Next week I have even more to share!  Stay tuned.  Hope you enjoy and can make one of these fun projects!

 

Joke of the Day

Q:  Why did the ghost go to the Emergency Room?


A:  Because he had a BOOOO, BOOOO!

Parksdale II

Hello everyone today at Parksdale Village II is half alive and half dead day...you heard right.  Everyone is getting so excited about dressing up for Halloween.  After the kids work on their homework, they immediately want to decorate the computer lab and work on scary arts and crafts.  Enjoy!

 

Parksdale

Hello Everyone and Happy Friday!

Here are some pics that depict the Fall.  When you see ghosts and spider webs you automatically think Halloween which is the next big thing to come...in other words next to Thanksgiving and Christmas, Halloween is pretty cool.  Even though it's not a "Holiday" in the strict sense of the word, it brings people out to celebrate across the nation.  Enjoy the pics.

 

Goshen Village II

Hello everyone!

Halloween is here and the kids started making cool and scary decorations as well as making time to finish their homework...homework first then arts & crafts.

 

Sand Creek

My name is Maite Mendoza I'm the new after school coordinator at Sand Creek. I've had the pleasure to meet wonderful great children that are full of energy and have great ideas for the program.  The first days the children filled out an activity called "All About Me." They were able to introduce themselves to each other and learn more about each other by sharing who they are, what they like, etc.  They had fun talking about their dislikes, likes and hobbies. Also the children made birthday balloons...they were able to decorate them and place them on our birthday wall.

On October 1st we had our first program birthday girl. The children made a birthday card with fun filled notes.  Once we finished making the birthday girl her birthday card we got to decorate cupcakes and had so much fun.  Gotta love birthday parties.  Now onto the current season...since Fall is now upon us, the children are making lots of creative craft activities like painting pumpkins for our wall vines, hanging ghosts, jack-o-lanterns, bats, skeletons and lots of scary stuff.  Our students have had the opportunity to make some spiders and ghost hand paintings...they also been playing some cool games like bingo and have won some nice prizes.  The children are looking forward to the next Fall Festival that we have planned at the end of this month and they have a full list of wonderful play games and great crafts ideas.

 

Sunrise Villa

Recently the students and I have been redecorating the computer lab to a Fall like atmosphere.  I've also been focusing on making them engage in coloring so that they can enroll in AWI's coloring contest.  Hope we win.  Enjoy the pictures:-)

 

Parksdale II

Hello everyone, today is mask day.  As you can see in the pictures below everyone is wearing a mask. The kids and I made a calendar of the things they wanted to do or wear for the last two weeks before Halloween...you heard right, Halloween...where does the time go.  Some students chose a day for scary masks and tomorrow will be Mummy day.  We also watched a movie that deals with the topic of bullying.  The kids are learning why bullying is bad and why they should never do it...hope you enjoy the pictures.

 

 

Lincoln Plaza

Hello Everyone,

It's Halloween time and for the past few weeks we have been working on various arts and crafts related to this awesome season.  Here are some of our projects that we have completed. Unfortunatley we have chosen projects that require a vast majority of drying time.  Hope you all enjoy them because Lincoln Plaza did enjoy making these projects.  This week our goal is to work on flower bouquets with birds and bats...the flowers will be made out of duct tape, in the meantime enjoy our pictures below.

 

 

Cottonwood Creek

Hello to all the coordinators!

These past few weeks we have been fast at work!!  We had a few projects that we worked on and the kids loved them all! To start, we made a friendship bracelet but first we had to make some modifications because it was a bit advanced for some of the kids. The materials were simple, all we needed was yarn to make the bracelet.  For the girls (and most boys) I had a worksheet that had a "how to draw" a character from a book.  The kids loved it and drew and colored the cartoon they had just learned...some even drew "free hand" it was great.

We have been outside a few times in the last two weeks but unfortunately I came down with an awful cold so I stayed home a couple days last week.  But it was not all lost...when the first days of October came around I came up with a fun way to get the kids writing and made a worksheet with the title:" I'm looking forward to October because......" and explained to the kids that they could write about anything they wanted to talk about especially since this is such a fun month which includes Halloween!

Most of them talked about Halloween but others talked about new shows on television and even the nicer weather!  It was great because after the paragraph I got them to draw what they had just wrote about on the bottom half of the page.  To finish off the week I decided to reward the children because they had been very well behaved, so I rented a movie and bought mini popcorn bags for each person. They loved the movie "Diary of a wimpy kid."  I hope that the rest of the month only gets better and more filled with fun!  We have a few fun projects up our sleeves this month so stay connected this month to see the end results.