Hey,
Everyone here at P.S. 57 is doing great! We are all working very hard before the holdiday break and the kids are very excited as well. Yesterday afterschool we made gingerbread houses out of cardboard. I was so impressed at how awesome they came out and how much the kids enjoyed making them! Today for starfish we are going to discuss health and the topic will be exercise. I’m sure it will be a great time. Happy holidays!
Rick Wolfsdorf
Hi!
My name is Candra and I represent the P.S. 48 Hunt’s Point in the Bronx, NY. You may be wondering what occurs in the life of a City Year New York corps member and I thought I would let you know.
This week was extremely busy with the Board members coming for the board party. I was a part of the D-Comm team which means I am like the face of the corps when we have important people coming or need to outreach to different organizations. We are not the only ones in charge since everyone at City Year is a part of it. I must say it was a grand ol”’ time traveling all the way from the Bronx down to West 22nd street in Manhattan to practice our skit. Traveling is definitely part of the daily grind at City Year New York. Our hard work and creative effort paid off because at the board party, everyone laughed and enjoyed our skit. I had the part of Tiny Tim as well as helping transition the scenes using parts of Wayne’s World for inspiration. Along with D-Comm, I have been selected as one of the Recreational managers for Camp City Year. Camp City Year is when the corps members create camp in a couple of the public schools for kids during their spring break. Part of my job is to come up with activities that the kids will love and then making sure the activities run smoothly. Last week, I had my first meeting which was exciting since I saw I would be working with other wonderful corps members.
On top of that I was at the school hard at work doing fun activities with the kids. One activity was Bringing Books to Life in which I had the opportunity of reading my favorite childhood series The Beranstain Bears. For my book, I chose The Bears’ Christmas which some of the students read but they all enjoyed listening to. Afterwards, they made pictures and photo frames decorating them with glitter glue which was very, very messy. Overall, they loved it and even the teachers became involved with making their own pictures and picture frames. I think the best part of City Year is doing Bringing Books to Life or BBL for short since I love to read and have an endless lists of books and activities for the kids to do.
To top off this week, we had team bonding on Friday! My team and I went to Chelsea Piers to get our bowl on! I must admit I was on a roll but, out of nowhere my one of my teammates, Chad, came and took the lead. Yeah, whatever. Then we went to Toys R’ Us in Times Square which was really exciting since I had never been there before. I must say I felt like a kid again seeing all my favorite toys such as Legos and Playmoblie. I almost bought something but I refrained myself. Then we headed to lunch with another team at P.S. 75 which is also in Hunt’s Point. My team was famished and looking forward to the meal only to find that instead of 2:00 at the Dallas BBQ on 42nd it was now 2:30 at the Dallas BBQ on 23rd and 8th Ave. It was well worth the wait and we scoffed down our food in no time. Next, it was on to the Holiday party for reminiscing the year, exchanging gifts, and eating more food. Ahh, the life of a corps member. Thank goodness we get our exercise on at Physical Training or PT for short.
This week is the final week in 2006 before we go off to break. And I can say, I am really looking forward to getting refreshed so I can enjoy the second half of the year.
Yours in Service,
Candra
It’s my first time so here goes my blog.
Today my day consisted of morning meeting and participating in the CYNY Carol skit. I didn’t embarrass myself so I think it went pretty well. We rushed back to our school and I did some Great Leaps and BBL. BBL always surprises me, I am always shocked that our kids can actually recall things from our lessons. I don’t know, I still can’t believe that I’m actually teaching others. It’s weird to have that sort of influence.
PSC or lunch clubs were a little more difficult. We had 3 corps members plus our service leader missing today so it was a little hectic. I just know that working with the student I have now are difficult enough w/o adding on another 20 bunch of students whose names I don’t know. Sometimes I really don’t feel like my Art PSC is doing very much for my students, since I have know nothing about art nor do I any resources to create anything that would enrich their lives. For this past month all I’ve had access to as far as “art resources” are crayons and construction paper. I’m solely responsible for this club. So I’ve been going insane and feeling immensely guilty for my sub-par “art club”. I even elicited the help of my friends who are art majors and they came up with fantastic ideas that are just not feasible. I want to expose them to real art. Not crafts! I really don’t know. These kids already getting gypped in every part of their education just because they come from the South Bronx.(Please excuse my derogatory use of the word gypped, but honestly I can’t think of anything else to put.) So I feel so lame! I know I’m trying my hardest so that all I can really do. I know that I’ll take time during the break to figure out something but till holiday break I just keep going in there and faking it. Honestly, it’s better than nothing, but why is there nothing else?
Oh and another thing happened today during BBL. I have this one third grader in my club who definitely has behavioral issues and drives me half insane. Today he wrote the one of the things he’s excited about in school every day is coming to my club. He says he really like doing all the cool stuff we do like drawing our body parts and stuff. So yeah, he thinks it’s cool. All I can think is thank God!
Yours in service,
Roma
P.S. 75 Hunt’s Point, South Bronx
