Thursday morning I set up for the seniors and then I got the crafts ready for the day for the instructors. Thursday is also the second day of the week for running club. Today we ran and walked through the trails. A majority of the kids like to sprint for about 60 ft. and then walk till they catch their breath and then sprint again. For this first week I let them run however they wanted, weather it was running for a few seconds and then walking or running the whole thing. The trails are in a really safe area and it is a paved path. My group of running kids I all already knew, I had them in previous classes last year. They are all a great bunch of kids and I look forward to spending time with them each week. After Running Club I checked on the other classes and then helped covered the office for the rest of the morning. A few more summer program registrations came in and I added them to the class list. In the afternoon I gathered the items for Friday’s activities and I picked up the craft room. Friday morning I showed the instructors the crafts for the day and what needed to be done. In the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle class the kids made a pig out of a water bottle, egg carton, and pink paint. Also they wind chime out of a Gatorade bottle, string, and beads, and then they painted the bottle. In the afternoon I just picked up and put away everything in the craft room from the week. Then I started looking at lesson plans for next week. Friday afternoon Holly and cleaned our desk area and swept the floors and started talking about how next week was going to go. (so much sand was getting tracked inside from the beach) We got the class list together and made a list of supplies that were needed for next week activities.
In the afternoon on Tuesday I put away all the materials from Monday and Tuesday and started getting things ready for Wednesday’s activities. The afternoon was pretty slow; we did not have much going on. I browsed through Pinterest looking for any new, cute crafts for the kids to do later this week. We also had a few more people come in and sign up for summer programs. I then added them to the class lists. Few people also came in and asked about pier spaces, I am not in charge of the, Holly is, but this summer has started out a busy one for the pier spaces because we just started summer and we only have about 7 spaces left. Wednesday morning when I got in I gathered all the materials needed for the day then I told the instructors what they were going to be doing for that day and I then covered the office while Holly was in meetings all morning. I just had to answer the phone & and take care of boat rentals. The instructors who were doing peewee basketball I told them to also play some games like duck duck goose, red light green light. This way the kids do not get bored and tired of doing the same thing every day. Since they are only 3-5 year olds their attention span isn’t very long. Also when the kids are not behaving we try and bribe them with popsicles at the end of the class. This usually gets the younger kids to listen and cooperate. Then in the afternoon on Wednesday I ran errands for Holly. I walked over to town hall to get the mail and drop off paper work. I then went into town to grab a variety of supplies that were needed to finish out the week.
It is the first week of our Summer Programs, I came in a little earlier this morning to make sure things were ready to go. When I got in I first set up the chairs and tables and workout video for the seniors. Then I went and got all the supplies needed for the first class and told the other instructors what they were going to be doing. This summer have a completely new staff. Monday I helped out at each of the activities to show them how the class should be ran. That all went very smoothly for the first day, hoping it goes this smoothly the rest of the summer. Our first programs of the summer included: pirate adventures, peewee Basketball, youth basketball, reduce, reuse, and recycle. The first class was at 9am and this class was a preschool class, pirate adventures. Throughout this entire week the kids get to make their own eye patches, decorate their own swords, color their own treasure chest, and even go looking for buried treasure (on the beach we hid little pirate toys and they get to dig in the sand). Then at 10am is peewee basketball. During this week the kids will learn the very basics of basketball. For example like how to dribble and pass. These kids are between the ages 3-5 so we also make it fun for them and play other games so they don’t get too bored with us. Next at 11am there are two classes, youth basketball, and reduce, reuse, and recycle art class. In youth basketball this week they will be learning more about the sport of basketball, and will play pick up games. In reduce reuse and recycle; they will use items such as cardboard, water bottles and such to create different projects. The first project of today was making a candle out of crayons. This project took the entire hour because we had to melt the crayons in the microwave and to make sure the kids were safe, we had to do one candle at a time. This project took a while, but the kids really did enjoy this and thought it was the coolest thing that they made a candle out of crayons. Tuesday I got things ready for the activities for the day. Tuesday morning was our first running club day. This activity is offered on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s throughout the entire summer. This is the one class that I do teach and I really enjoy it. In Running Club I take the kids back to the trails (one main paved trail and also lots of different dirt trails) and we run/hike. On this first day we were just going to run through the trails and back on the paved path. It’s about one mile down and one-mile back. The kids in this class all knew this area very well. I told them I was going to have them run as much as they want and if they wanted to walk they could walk some. So I let them go ahead and I brought up the end with the last kid. All the kids ran most of the way. After this I came back and checked on the other classes, and got things ready for the recycle class.
Thursday morning is the second day of the week that the seniors come and I set up their chairs, tables and workout video. After I started the video for them, I then made a Wal-Mart run to get all the supplies that are going to be needed. At the store I had to get crayons, canvas boards, hot glue sticks, sand paper, t-shirts, cotton balls, glue, paper plates, and tin foil. When I returned, I organized and prepared baskets for each class with all the materials needed for the activities they would be doing starting on Monday. Here at the park we offer free swim lessons, so I started making our swim lesson rosters for the summer. We have about 6 lifeguards who rotate and about 3 of them are certified to give swim lessons. My boss Holly and I on Friday made sure everything was ready to go for Monday morning. I was also in charge with putting up the marque sign for the summer program registration. On Friday afternoon, Shelby (working with Holly & the park on the new Winona Lake Limitless Park) came in and they discussed where they were at with the fundraising. During this time I covered the phone and took care of any customers that came in.
It’s now the middle of the week and I just completed the reorganizing of the craft room. I am in charge of keeping track of registrations for summer programs; planning out each day what the kids would do, and making sure the instructors know what they were going to be teaching to the kids. I then worked on making class lists to see how many kids we have in each class and seeing what supplies need to be bought. For each class we need about 3 different crafts each day, which fills an hour time slot for that class. Pinterest is my main go to website to look up different arts and crafts ideas. This especially helps with our science class and coming up with different science experiments to do with the kids. Some examples of the programs offered are: peewee and youth sports, preschool crafts, Youth crafts, running club, swim lessons, archery, science classes and pioneering. Wednesday was mainly about figuring out which crafts we wanted to do and how many kids were in each class. I was on the computer most of the day going through Pinterest and looking up different ideas for all sorts of crafts. During this week we had a few canoe, paddle boats, and kayak rentals I took care of. When taking care of boat rentals, we must have them fill out a waiver. We also require a $20 deposit, and a copy of their photo I.D. In our office we are unable to accept credit or debit; so anytime anyone asks about boat rentals we also have to mention we only take cash or check. Today I had two people come in, one rented a canoe for an hour and another couple rented both kayaks for an hour.
The building I work in is the Senior Center (Community Center) of Winona Lake. The first thing I do when I get here on Monday mornings is set up tables, chairs, and a chair workout video in the main room for our seniors that come in twice a week. Every Monday and Thursday morning at 9:30 am is when the seniors start their video, which usually last about 30-40 minutes. There is also a workout room in the building that some of them also utilize. In the workout room there are free weights, two treadmills, and a couple of bikes. This week I am reorganizing and preparing for next week when our Summer Programs for kids start. The “craft room” is where we keep all our supplies for the various activities we offer. My job for this week was cleaning this room up and reorganizing it as well as finding out what we were going to need for this next week and tentatively for the rest of the summer. A major part of cleaning out the craft room was deciding what was trash. There were multiple unfinished crafts and an abundance of scrap paper all around. Once I got all the trash out of there, I then decided I wanted to rearrange the room, so it would be more sufficient for us this summer. This job took the rest of Monday and Tuesday to complete. While going through everything. I found out that we really needed to get rid of this old wood cabinet that we use for holding supplies such as flower, sugar, baking soda, vinegar, cornstarch, popcorn kernels, and the such. While I was seeing what was still usable, I found out there were ants in some of these. I then had throw some ingredients out, and then I got the vacuum and swept up all the ants I could. After that I drug out the wood cabinet, and Holly then called the street department guys to come and take the cabinet to the dumpster for us. Now that I had a little more room to work with, I found different shelving in another room and brought that into the craft room for us to use for our ingredients instead. Tuesday morning when I got to work, my first task was to finish organizing the craft room.
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