Pictures

I'm so lazy in updating. I'm going to lay down a bunch of pictures.

Hiding at Thanksgiving Feast

We love uniforms

Thanksgiving Feast

Columbia Grove Apartments: Reading Jack Frost and setting the stage for the rest of the day's activities!

Here I am leading students in brainstorming winter words and creating rhymes to jump start their poetry-writing.

A winter poem

Teamwork

Gingerbread Houses!

Those graham cracker templates took me over and hour the night before...

 Enjoi

e

One big post

The best way to do this is with pictures:

I guess I am the designated face painter

That's me in the snack room painting faces for the Halloween fieldtrip.  I was horrible at it, but I had a time limit and several children crowding me all at once, so there.

We went to Marymount U., an ironically Catholic University close by that hosts a huge Halloween event, filled with scary dorm hallways, game booths, trick or treating, pizza, and a lot of crying girls in costume(dorms too scary). I was permanently attached to, and therefore forced to protect, three brave young souls- a "Pajama Girl", Mouse, and ...Princess, was it? They underestimated the amount of terror young Catholic (male) college students could pack into a strobe lit but otherwise completely pitch black hallway. We made it three steps before they retreated in tears. It was actually a very successful field trip and I enjoyed it throughly.

I haven't talked a lot about this part of my job, but I'm in the schools twice a week- Tues and Thurs mornings at Campbell Elementary. Here are two very interesting conversations I had with two different fourth grade boys today:

Me: What do you want to be when you grow up?
4th Grade Boy: I dunno, like a bad guy or something.
Me: What do you mean?
Boy: Like a bank robber.
Me: !! But you'll go to jail and won't have any family!
Boy: Yeah but I'll be rich!

4th Grade Boy: Your name is Erin. Not Mrs. Erin...
because you're not married, right?
Me: Right.
Boy: Why aren't you married?
Me: I feel too young.
Boy: How old are you?
Me: 24.
Boy: (with a SHOCKED expression!) WHHAAAAT! That's so old to get married. My mom got married when she was 19!
Me: Too young for me. When do you want to be married?
Boy: 19!!!

I like going into the school because of the structure that is nearly impossible to match in the after-school realm, which is always a circus. And it completely and drastically reinforces my belief that being a classroom teacher is one of the most challenging careers out there... speaking of which, our organization went on a field trip to see this:

It was really powerful & really depressing. I cried a lot. I would recommend it.

We also went on a team-building retreat at 7 in the morning to Front Royal, VA. It was BEAUTIFUL to see fall that way. We climbed through spiderwebs and bonded and you know I was in such heaven in the whole mushy experience of getting to know my coworkers and uppers. 

What else?

Work is challenging. The ratio is not perfect, as it never seems to be in any environment working with children. We have several challenging behaviors that I wish I could tackle one-on-one all the time, Camp Starfish style, but the truth is, I really don't have the time for that. Or much of anything. I don't know. Maybe I do-- but it seems overwhelming at times.

Truly, though, I love my job and the experience here is more than I could have asked for. Sometimes it's just hard waking up and knowing what I need to "get through" on a daily basis. The kids are really special though. I'm in the process of making a CD for one 5th grade boy who is particularly close to my heart (He requested to hear some songs he said he heard weeks ago on YouTube and hasn't been able to hear since). Yesterday we sang Bulls on Parade together!

OH, and another thing. In order to get my team to read for the whole 20 minutes today, efficiently, I told them that if they could do it, we could listen to "Dynamite" (an appropriate mainstream rap song) and have a dance break. We did! It was glorious. 

Erin

More things I can buy with Food Stamps

Two of my favorite things blended into one addictive snack.

We had this at Kaldis. Heaven.

My dad would be proud.

Perfect for Nasal Congestion.

Erin

Video

I won a video contest at work. We had to create a video that was less than 2 minutes about AmeriCorps, GreenBrier, or just a day in the life. It is now featured on the website: greenbrierlearning.org

I created this:




Enjoy!

E

The Food I Can Buy With Food Stamps

Spoiled much?
Thank You Virginia Government!
This has been another edition to what Erin can buy on Food Stamps.

Politically Incorrect,
Erin

Getting Things Done

"Getting Things Done."

It's the AmeriCorps motto. It's very vague and silly and we use it probably more than we should ; ) Recently, we headed to Richmond, VA for the 2010-2011 Virginia AmeriCorps Kick-Off. It was loads of fun. 

Downtown Richmond: Ileana & Carolyn, not amused.

Kyle and his shoes

@ a bar: Kyle, Ileana, Me

It was also Ileana's Birthday!!

At the Kick-Off Conference, Steve and I had to prepare a 30-second elevator speech about Greenbrier Learning Center and present it in front of over 100 people, which was pretty cool. We also attended several workshops including a 90-minute workshop on ICEBREAKERS! My favorite! Here we are after taking the AmeriCorps Oath:

Greenbrier Team: Carolyn, Ileana, Kyle, Me, Joslynn, Steve

Look how cute we are in our AC gear. Aw. I love my coworkers with such a passion. I can't stand to be away from them (two are out of town this weekend). We were sure to use these days off work for all that they were worth. For me & Steve, this meant making Dirt Pudding Cups for Ileana's Birthday:

Beautiful.

And, of course, a little Karaoke.

To add to all the excitement, Carlie came to visit me from Chicago. Her, Steve & I had a blast touristing around DC. Finally I felt on the other side of the situation. Can you believe I've already been here almost 2 months? Or, even crazier, that I was almost done with India ONE year ago? crazy.

Yay New + Old Friends!

and Pancakes!

and "Peg"Cakes?

 Got to see some old friends this weekend, too! I love my life.

Back in Hollybrook 

<3

Update

Whoo. It's been forever. Things at work are chugging along and I'm quite exhausted actually. The kids has very much obviously passed the "honeymoon" stage of the program and have become particularly dissatisfied with the program and unaffected by my oh-so-meditated behavioral management techniques. I swear the more I work with kids the more I realize that no behavioral management strategy is foolproof. It's become..a little difficult to control the group. At the end of the day Im just happy that they finished their homework and didn't hit anyone. 

Anywhooo... More on that later. NOW, check out these wonderful costumes we threw together for the first day of fall RELAY RACE.  We wanted to be scarecrows but didn't have hats or pants for the kids to put on, so we just threw together an assortment of items:

Illeana! Scarecrow?...more like sexycrow.

Hawt. The Tevas are a nice touch

Meanwhile, the team is stronger than ever. We love each other even though we spent our entire days and nights hanging out. Here's an adorable picture we took before going out to an EPIC karaoke bar in Dupont Circle. It's the full-time staff.

The Full-Time Team  : ) : )

We have been going strong on our Thursday night potlucks--such great conversation, and equally amazing food!

This upcoming week, we'll be heading to Richmond for an AmeriCorps kick-off thing. I'm pumped for the free hotel rooms, spending time for the best people ever, and perhaps meeting some other interesting AmeriCorps members in the area. I hear Richmond is AWESOME. Can't wait.

Erin 

Moving Along

Canned Food Drive

That's me. School is rolling along and the kids are getting loads of homework. We allot an hour but it often times takes much more than that- it's challenging to be able to juggle all the kids at once.

I finally got a rack on my bike, so I don't have to wear a backpack anymore. I've also been riding the bus a lot- which is so easy and convenient in the area.

I also spent a decent amount of money on Indian Food recently...and it's delicious!

Snack Room

One of our first projects: Personal Profiles

Art Folders!

Hallway of our area

Learning ROCKS!

Top 10 things about work so far:

1. Some of the boys are going to grow up to be major heartbreakers

2. I feel loved by my students : )

3. Things are still pretty disorganized.

4. I bike up this huge hill everyday. It takes about 5 minutes but it's an intense 5 minute work out for sure. The way home at 6:30 is all downhill.

5. I still hate mass amounts of food (and serving it).

6. I LOVE ICEBREAKERS! and positive reinforcement

7. I love behavior management...on the small scale.

8. We did nature photography last week : )

9. I pick up six girls from the elementary school, and we sing camp songs the entire way to GLC.

10. I'm starting to experience office politics...

<3!

Erin