Christmas, Christmas time is near!

This week at Pathfinders we thought that it would be fun to let the kids have a party.  So basically what we did was we started out with a devotion, the pledge and other opening exercises.  We then went down to the gym to play dodgeball.  The kids really enjoyed the games and then we all broke off and played other games.  The older kids went to play basketball (boys vs. girls) and they had a great time.  We had some good christmas snacks for them at the end of the meeting.  All in all, the night was fun and everyone had a good time.  Nothing much more happened.  I will post some pictures of the games soon.

Exams will be over soon and that makes me happy.  As the holidays come closer, I think that we all need to just calm down and take the time to think about the true reason for the Christmas season.  Have a Merry Christmas!

Origami and Braiding pt. 2

This week in Pathfinders, the kids continued their honors that they had been working on last week.  This was the final week of braiding and origami.  To get the origami honor, the kids had to illustrate a bible story that could be told with the paper animals that they learned how to make.  They enjoyed the origami honor and had a great time last night.  The braiding group finished up their lanyards last night.  The groups did not make the crafts for anyone, but they did get to keep whatever they made.  Next week, a few of the other staff including myself are in charge of planning a fun game night for the kids in celebration of the upcoming holiday.  We had a few minutes to confer on what we wanted to do and what we thought that the kids would enjoy doing.  Much of the fun will be improvised next week, but we decided on having a basketball game of the girls vs. boys (the girls wanted to see how well they would do against the boys) and some Christmas type snacks.  The rest will most likely be a free time because kids at the ages that will be present will most likely be too hyper and will not cooperate much with any organized games.  Next week will be a fun time for the kids and staff as we get ready to celebrate the real reason for the holiday.

In other news, my research paper and vision paper are...finished!  This is very exciting because these two things have been taking up a lot of my time these past few weeks.  I am hoping to get a good grade on both.  My research paper is now stocked with many educational studies and statistics from journals and other book sources that will, hopefully, prove my point and sway my reader.  Now this is not to say that everyone will change their minds about single-sex education because of my paper, I wish it were that easy, but I do feel that I did a good job in displaying my findings and showing the consequences of this type of education.  I am glad to be done with these two papers as exams are approaching.  Between now and Monday, I still have an AP Calculus, AP English, and AP Biology test to take, another paper due, a poetry journal, and a Spanish project.  This break for Christmas is coming in the midst of the hurricane I call school.  I am glad that Christmas is happening after all of this because it will really give me a chance to appreciate the holidays more.  I am starting to get used to the workload and I am learning how to organize my time to get everything done in a timely manner.  Overall, an eventful week for my project and for everything else in school.  Onward to exams!

Paper folding and other fun things

This week at Pathfinders we started the Origami and Braiding (making lanyards and other crafts) honors.  I am assisting some of the other leaders in these two honors and will be teaching some of the honors to come.  This week and next week will be devoted to origami and braiding and the following weeks before Christmas will start a brand new set of honors.  We are due for a staff meeting soon where we will discuss upcoming honors and the upcoming inspection. We opened up with devotion, then the kids practiced their marching and then went straight to their honors.  The older kids took part in the braiding honor and the younger kids took the origami honor.

In Origami, the kids learned the basic folds (kite, fish, waterbomb, valley, and mountain folds) and then they learned how to make a paper boat and a paper balloon.  The paper balloon is really cool because you can actually blow up the ball so that it looks inflated.  Sounds impossible but it was fun and the kids seemed to enjoy that a lot.  Overall this was an eventful and fun night for all of the Pathfinders and we are all looking forward to many more.  Here they are, as promised, a few of the pictures that were taken from this week's meeting.  There are a few of the group marching as well.

In Braiding, the older kids learned how to do various braiding patterns to make lanyards and other types of keychains.  I was not as involved with helping at the braiding honor, but I did help out with origami.


In other news, school is continuing to go well. There are many things that are due within the next few weeks but otherwise everything is well.  Looking forward to the holidays so that I can get back on track and be able to plan a little more for the honors that I will be teaching soon.