What a crazy month! Between going to doctor appointments, physical therapy, recruiting & posting on job boards, interviewing new people, exiting members who quit, trying to reassign their work, planning Idaho@Play, moving the center to the new location and planning the Summer Program, I am about worn out. All sorts of things are falling through the cracks--like consistently writing in this blog!

We Get Things Done!

January whizzed by and I neglected to get a blog entry. AmeriCorps members accomplished some great things this month. We saw a steady rise in our attendance at SMASH. Reasons? Publicity, well thought out electives, the kick off week of special events, a variety of things to do each day and a real effort on the part of members to talk up the value of coming--I know that Cory did an excellent job with this. Rebecca planned some really fun activities that got the kiddos moving. Also, I think the homework help was improved with Sarah and Chance making an effort to help with it. Kudos to the group!

We are small but mighty! Neill found he was overwhelmed with work and school, so is taking a break.  Araceli found new employment that offered her a chance to become certified in insurance, so we had to regroup, prioritize and figure out what we could do and what would need to be set aside.

Here are some of the things we have accomplished this year:

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

AmeriCorps members helped plan and execute the fall carnival and provided activities at the school for two weeks (10 eight-hour days) during harvest vacation. We stock the concession stand and sell candy, popcorn, nachos, etc. during school games.

PARENTAL ENGAGEMENT

We inform parents of activities, ask and welcome parents and grandparents as volunteers. In conjunction with the Blackfoot Community Center, we provide classes in the evenings on parenting , finance, communication, etc. We help with Parent/Teacher Conferences. We maintain a email distro list of all parents with students in the SMASH after-school program.  We attend Parent/Teacher Conferences and dispense grade packets, so we speak with each person attending. We served a Potato Bar supper at the P/T Conference.

AFTER-SCHOOL & EXTENDED LEARNING

We hold  a 2- hour After-School Program called SMASH four days/week. The first 45 minutes is devoted to homework and practicing musical instruments. The last hour is more structured and classes such as  cooking, wood-working, acting, art, karate, etc. are taught. Student attendance is taken daily.

ATTENDANCE

AmeriCorps members compile attendance and chart students who need to make up tardies and absences during Friday School (held Friday mornings). We provide support to the faculty on Fridays.

BEHAVIORAL SUPPORT

Each member has 6-8 students that are assigned to them and they track their progress and report at staff meetings. Some are assigned for academic help, but some are also designated who have behavioral problems. Members are in class at least once per day with the designated students.

MENTORSHIP

AmeriCorps members attend classes with students during the day. Each member has 6-8 students that are assigned to them and they track their progress and report at staff meetings. Members are in class at least once per day with their students. They work closely with the RTI team to improve each designated student's grades by ensuring that homework is completed and handed in on time and that students attend to the lessons during the class period.

COLLEGE READINESS

The school is in the process of implementing the Career Information System into the curriculum. We have been briefly introduced to the system and have Career/Marketing classes as part of the SMASH after-school program. We also have Jr. Achievement scheduled. Thinking about careers and life-planning is an important step in giving students the reason to go to college and an important part of college readiness.

TUTORING

Both in-class tutoring and after-school tutoring are provided by AmeriCorps members. Math and Language Arts have been the main focus this year. One AmeriCorps member has attended the drama class all year to reach students in that class. The Student Success Classes have at least one member aiding the teacher every day.

SUPPORTIVE SERVICES

AmeriCorps members make copies, grade tests, and support teachers with anything they need to free the faculty's time for teaching. Members take tickets during lunch, provide lunch duty and monitor halls before school and during lunch breaks. Students who have all their assignments in, get an extra 30 minutes of free time during lunch and can choose to go to the library, computer lab, gym, or play games in the SMASH room. AmeriCorps members plan activities in the SMASH room for the extended lunch hour.

SCHOOL CLIMATE

AmeriCorps members create 4-5 different bulletin boards each month, plan, decorate and execute dances, plan faculty/student parties, such as a pancake breakfast for Christmas. Promoted the DARE program.

Out of School Summer Camp (June, July, August)

AmeriCorps plans activities for 8 weeks (40 days/8 hours per day) during the summer that are fun and informative. At least 30 minutes per day is spent reading. Every week there is a topic to research and we have a garden. Two or three family parties are also part of the program and the students fix the food, decorate and provide entertainment at these parties.

We Get Things Done! 

Pancake Breakfast Is Served

What a year--all squeezed into 4-1/2 months. We seemed to cram as much fun as possible into December too! Sarah did a great job planning the faculty party with great food, party games and party favors. She also put together the traditional breakfast for the last day of school for the year on Thursday. The students were served pancakes and waffles by their teachers.

I was given an assignment too. I mixed up McDonalds' orange drink for the group and filled glasses. It kept me hopping and I had to do some MOPPING too. Somehow, I spilled enough that I had to get out the mop to clean up, paper towels just wouldn't do the job.

I think all of us left the lunchroom with smiles on our faces. It was a fun way to start the day.

Give Thanks...Think Snow

I didn't get a picture of our cute bulletin board. This is what it looked like as I took it down.

"Give Thanks" is going to be "Think Snow" for December.
 

Post-It Notes Everywhere!

Hurrah! We are getting great feedback from the students and help planning activities for 2016. We gave students post-it notes and asked them to write activities they would like to do during our after-school program - SMASH. We soon out grew the poster and started adding the ideas directly to the wall.

And more notes were added to the IDEA wall...

 

 

Now we have to compile the results and figure out how to deliver the programming.

The AmeriCorps members may have to learn a few new things!

Mice!

I don't think there are too many things that I hate more than cleaning up after mice. I have pulled items out of cupboards in the SMASH room, sprayed them down with Clorox spray, swept and wiped them out and put items back --too many times to count this month.
I had to throw away any open food items. I purchased plastic containers to store after-school snacks.

    
This has just been an exceptionally bad year for mice.

I received a great letter from a grandma of three boys that attended Harvest Happenings:
My grandchildren really enjoyed the Harvest Happenings provided by the SMASH program.

They enjoyed all the crafts they did. They especially liked the potato printing and the other thing they did with the stamp pads (sorry, I can't remember what the activity was called, but I think it was a Halloween activity).

They still have their grass pots and the faces are still in place. I really liked the Q-tip skeleletons.

Their favorite activities were the ones conducted in the gym. All of the gym games were fun to them and they were happy to have the two (maybe three, I can't remember now) karate lessons. (I should say "martial arts" lessons because it really wasn't karate, but all these forms of martial arts have all been lumped together in my mind as karate.)

Eating lunch outside and the lunch hour games were also fun for them.

All the instructors and helpers and volunteers were polite, attentive to the kids, and disciplinary (which I appreciated very much).

Thank you for the SMASH Program,
Suzanne Kofed


And thank you Mrs. Kofed for volunteering your time. We enjoyed having you there.
Sincerely,
Judy