Monday, May 26, 2008

Sweet ideas, please.

HEY everybody! 

I need your guys help. I'm working with 7th and 8th graders at my church this summer, and I have a lot of flexibility as to what I can do with them. SO, I'm wondering if you guys have any ideas of what I could do with hundreds of middle schoolers, or maybe even small groups of them. Ideas could pertain to the environment, or not at all. You guys are creative, so that's why I'm asking. Paul was thinking that having a Paint Yourself Day would be cool and I agree... that would be sweet. He also mentioned growing plants in pots... But, you know, some other examples could be having pet earth worms with leashes or going on backpacking trips... SO.. let your minds go crazy and then let me know what you're thinking!
THANKS!
Hope your summers are going GREAT : )


-Emily

5 comments:

Kate said...

ideas for kids...
well you could make pots out of newspaper and then paint them and plant stuff in them- that is a good way to make pots for seedlings which i am going to do this spring
you could make scupltures or birdhouses out of recycled stuff/trash
you could also make other stuff out of newspaper- like roll it up into beads or hots plates like those ones at the outreach fair from the cool company from africa (?)
i don't know if you could do this - but make a small structure out of cob, which is sand, dirt, straw, and water- i'm making the shed out of it in the fall.
good luck!

Mesha Provo said...

They are at the perfect age ....
to learn how to juggle.
Eye and hand coordination should be excellent.
It's a cool thing to do, it's something they can learn and be proud of, and it takes a commitment to learn.
If you don't know how, I can do it.
I live in Sewanee...contact me through our blog...http://redoakhollow.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

I like Kate's ideas about making things out of newspaper-- I bet that if you googled newspaper crafts you'd come up with a lot of ideas. You can also make things with old t-shirts. And collaging things is a lot of fun-- like take old cookie tins or picture frames and cover them with pictures cut from magazines. It might also be fun to try and make a rude goldberg machine out of recycled materials (one of those machines where you do something like crack an egg in twenty steps-- there are examples on youtube and wikipedia)

Paul said...

These are borrowed from a friend. Emily has already seen them but I figured everyone else might be interested in them....

1.) free hug days. paint signs that say "free hugs" and stand on a random corner. it's interesting, to say the least.
ii.) get lost day: drop kids off in random parts of the city, give them a bus pass/money/a partner/ a map and then they have to find their way back. we used to do it last summer for fun in the STL, and then incorporated it into my program at XU for the incoming fellows so they could better acquaint themselves with the city/public transportation. BUT! letting 13-year olds loose on nashville could prove to be a little dicey, so feel free to change the program accordingly.
c.) large, widespread scavenger hunts.
4.) isn't there a large outdoor farmer's maket/flea market in the downtown area? you could go there for lunch. even more fun, make the kids buy lunch on foodstamp $ (like 1.25 per kid). that leads to some good discussion. you could frame the whole day around homelessness, etc.
v.) blind days. blindfold the kids, partner them and then take them to a park. have one "seeing" kid explain the world to the other kid, and then have switch. if you want to get really creative and you have more resources, then call it "mud experience day." take the kids to a creek/neck-high muddy place, then stretch a rope across the area in a zigzag pattern. blindfold every kid, and make them find their way through the area by following the person in front of them and holding onto the rope. (they can't see the area before they wade through it). it's fun to do it [and it makes you trust the people around you] plus, for you, it'd be even funnier to watch.
6.) i don't know what the kids are like, but looking into something like the brown eyed/ blue eyed experiment could be fascinating.
vii) also, something my gradeschool does is called "walking school bus." where this one teacher "picks up" kids from their homes and walks with them to school. that could be a good way to encourage sustainable transportation/fitness.
8. any kind of themed clothing is fun, especially if you make it on site with tie-dye or silkscreen (encourage them to reuse a piece of clothing).. other than that you could have purple day or wear-your-flair,etc.

Unknown said...

hey, thanks for all the great ideas!
Helen, I just checked out the rube goldberg videos and I found one of the most ridiculous ones ever, which is beside the point. The point is that I think that would be amazing to do with the kids. It might be hard, but hey, we could figure it out. Kate, I like your idea about the potted plants a lot. I would really like to make a cob structure because that would be SO SWEET, but we'll see if that is probable or not.. I'll let you know if I do. I just googled newspaper crafts, which was a great idea, thanks Helen. There were a lot of creative and sweet ideas, but my favorite was the newspaper kite!? And yeah, Anna's ideas that Paul put down are really great, too. Man, thanks guys. I'll keep you updated : )

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