First session

Today we went to the boys and girls club for our first session of team building activities. Overall I think our session was quite successful. I was worried before we arrived because we were told the entire club was going to be required to participate in our activities. However, the kids were given an option to participate. We first started with the name game which failed because the kids did not really understand the game. After a couple of rounds we learned names enough so we decided to move on to the next activity. For our next activity we played mafia. I think our game would have been better if we had older kids playing. I was not expecting to have kids around the age of 7. They did not really understand the point of the game. It was fun for the first few rounds but they lost interest quite easily. After the mafia game, we played chain tag. I believe the chain tag game was by far the most successful. We stressed the importance of working together in order to get other people. There was a problem with one of the kids. He would get frustrated with having to be locked in a chain and wanted to break free to chase after his friends. I think by the end the kids saw how important it was to work together for a common goal. We would decide who we wanted to tag and communicated with each other to chase after them. During the chain tag game, we also got a lot more kids to join us. We started with a majority of girls in our group. Toward the end of the tag game we attracted a whole lot more boys to our group. When we were done with the tag game we had an extra 15 minutes to spare so we decided to play basketball or four square. It was successful because the kids who did not want to play basketball were satisfied with four square.
I thought the dynamics of the boys and girls club were very surprising. I thought the racial groups were very diverse and the way the children acted were even more diverse. As a natural people watcher I learned a lot about the children by watching the way they acted. I tried to decide why they acted the way they did, for example some obviously did not get enough attention at home. Some of the pieces came together when we saw how the parents acted toward their children when they were being picked up.
I really enjoyed our first session and think that the kids really enjoyed having us around. The staff seemed satisfied with our activities, especially chain tag. I was afraid after today’s lunch meeting that the staff was going to be too strict preventing the kids from fooling around and having a good time. Actually the staff was great help. They stayed out of the way and let us regulate the activities. I did appreciate having Gerald around during the chain tag because he helped us make sure the kids were participating correctly and he knew how to handle the disobedient kids. I can’t wait for our next session.

As a side note: I just wanted to add this to the blog but I don’t think anyone will really read this. As I was playing with the kids I happened to see the conflict resolution group get out. When exiting one kid placed frosting from his cupcake onto another kids shirt. That kid turned to him and said “I swear I’ll hit you.” I found this interesting because they just exited from a session that should have taught them that violence is not the way to solve a problem. I am not saying that the conflict resolution did not work because I think it would be basically impossible to change someone’s raw emotions in just a few sessions. I just didn’t know if you guys wanted to address that as a scenario at your next session. I just thought that I would throw out something I saw from my observations.