So, the last week of January is upon us and we wonder how did that happen?! We sent the first month of the year out by keeping active and busy. Carol was gone this week, spending time in Mobile, Alabama with her son Adam, his wife Kelley, and their precious little boy, Dylan. We know Carol enjoyed her time with her first grandchild! We were happy to welcome Laura's mom, Lisa P., to help us in Carol's absence. She spent all day Tuesday with us, and we kept her busy. Thanks, Lisa P. Your help was greatly appreciated.
Annmarie was back this week! She was down with the flu and pneumonia last week, and we missed her. We sent her some pretty get well cards, so she thanked us and said the cards were very special!
Tuesday was National Have Fun at Work Day so we spent all day at AFCC and had fun with several activities. We made lovely cards to send our yoga friend Kiley, who lives in Minnesota now and is going to grad school. Annmarie and Laura put the finishing touches on their cards. Knowing we would cheer up Kiley was FUN for us!
Kiley wrote to us last week and said she looks at the photo we gave her every day. It makes her smile and gives her inspiration to work hard! We put some inspiring quotes inside her cards, to further encourage her. Xavier and Cameron thought they were pretty!
Tuesday was National Kazoo Day, and that's a fun "holiday" to celebrate. We watched a video and tried to learn a bit of the science behind sound, such as it comes from vibrations and travels through air. Then, we made our own kazoos using TP tubes and wax paper. Devin was still assembling his, but Kacie was already making sounds with hers!
Liz brought several kazoos from home and even played one for us. You can tell by Abraham's expression that she did an amazing job!!
Cameron and Sam concentrated on putting their kazoos together, as did Liz and Drew. We were gearing up for a concert...
Our guys gave it their all, but playing a kazoo isn't that easy, even though our video guy said all you have to do is "hum" and you'll make music...ha!
Still, it was fun on Have Fun at Work Day, so we have no complaints. Here's a very short snippet of our concert!
It was also fun to celebrate Blueberry Pancake Day! Here, Sam and Devin were browning some sausage patties to go with our pancakes. These two are a good team on a task like this!
Lisa P.'s team of Kacie and Liz had their work cut out to make pancakes from scratch for 15 hungry friends, but they got it done! Thanks again for volunteering today, Lisa P. We hope you enjoyed being with us as much as we enjoyed having you!
Aren't these blueberry pancakes just beautiful? They were delicious!
Our plans to go to the park for a walk were thwarted when the predicted 🌞 and high of 49 was more like 42 cloudy degrees with a bit of wind! Luckily, it was a holiday for students at JRES and we got to use the gym!
Kevin, Abraham, and Devin shot some buckets during Choice Time.
Later, we all played a game of 4 Corners which involves a lot of running...thus the blurry guys!
All the guys in this corner had just won the round. Kacie was pretty excited! 😜
After our game, we walked a few laps and then returned to the room to watch a Mystery Doug episode called "Can Animals Laugh?" It was very interesting and it turns out, some of them do!
Wednesday was National Puzzle Day so we did some paper puzzles. This group worked with Nan to rearrange pieces into the shape of a football since the big game is on Sunday. This was also a chance for these guys to practice using a glue stick independently. They only had to put a quick swipe of glue for each piece of their puzzle.
At this table, the friends were working together to correctly glue pieces of a United States puzzle together. They had a map for reference, but it was still challenging. As usual, they stuck with it and their collaboration paid off with completed puzzles in about 15 minutes!
Our Rotary friend, Jeff, worked with us in the computer lab on Wednesday. He helped two-person teams create appreciation letters for some of our volunteers and friends at the school. Our guys help Jeff learn shortcuts, and sometimes new skills, that they know from using Microsoft Word, and he helps them expand their thoughts and punctuate sentences. It's a great relationship!
Kevin looked on as Laura refilled the water for our birdies. We moved the disc off of the wire stand and placed it on top of the pot of soil for now. We need to figure out a better system so the squirrels don't keep spilling it!
We filled our squirrel-buster feeders with the last bit of birdseed we had, and Abraham and Drew hung them back on the stands. We spilled a little extra...for the squirrels! 😋
About 30 minutes after we finished off our bag of seed, Lisa P. stopped by and gave us more! She was here yesterday and knew we were running low. Thanks so much, Lisa P., from us and our birds! Also in this shot is our blooming Christmas cactus plants that MG Elizabeth gave us several months ago. There is only one bloom on each, but they are very pretty!
We exercised before lunch. There was a lot of marching and arm raising in this routine! It felt good to get our hearts pumping!
After lunch, we had gentle yoga with Patti. She was feeling better this week, and we were glad to hear it!
This is one way to "open our chest" so that our breathing is more efficient. Reaching and stretching isn't that hard, and the benefits are great!
Here are a few more of our guys opening their chests. We like that Patti does such a variety of moves during yoga class, both on our feet and on our mats.
Before putting away our yoga mats we looked at pictures of Carol's grandson, Dylan. She has sent us a few and we love seeing that cutie pie! We're so happy for Carol and her family!
Look at all the birds at the feeders at the end of the day! Every "table" was taken! We guess the other birds will have to make a reservation!
We studied Arkansas on Thursday. It was the 25th state to enter the Union on June 15, 1836. The most amazing thing we learned is that a LOT of rice is grown in Arkansas! They produce more rice than any other state...we didn't realize most of the rice we eat is grown in our own country. We also learned that rice was first cultivated in China, and it didn't make its way to the United States until the late 1860s. Arkansas farmers produce more than 9 billion pounds of rice each year! We were able to order some fun study materials from the Arkansas Agriculture Board, so our work was a little different today than it has been for previous states.
While studying a map of Arkansas's agricultural products, Abraham was excited to find that the name of one of the counties is the same as his last name!
After learning about all the rice grown in Arkansas, we decided to make a chicken and rice casserole for lunch. (They raise a lot of poultry in Arkansas, too.) We used a bag of rice that was in a box of nonperishable food Heike donated to us, and when we checked the label, we discovered it was from Arkansas! Sam and Devin shredded the chicken and Alexis prepared the cracker crumb topping for our casserole.
The sauce for the casserole consisted of sour cream, cheese, milk, and spices. Abraham had to add the milk "slowly" as Kacie stirred the mixture. They created a smooth and creamy...and delicious sauce!
Our rice casseroles were a big hit, and the green beans were a perfect side.
It was such a nice day, sunny and just a little chilly, that we went for a "Rice Race" after lunch. It felt good to get fresh air and walk a few laps around the blacktop and back field.
Kacie, Kevin, and Xavier weren't behind, they were so far ahead they had almost finished an extra lap by the time their friends were heading back inside!
Under Becky's watchful eye, we played Arkansas Agricultural Bingo at the end of the day. There are so many great products that come from Arkansas, and when Becky read the clues, we figured out a lot of them. Some of our favorites, besides rice, included catfish, cotton, corn, and peaches!
Not all of the products were on each card, which meant we really had to pay attention. Alexis found grapes, but Drew, Liz, and Patrick kept looking!
Friday morning found this pesky squirrel trying to bust into the bird feeder, but true to its name, it is a "Squirrel Buster" bird feeder. He gave up after a few minutes!
Our Friday theme was "Super Bowl" and some of our friends chose to wear sports-themed clothing. We love their spirit! Kevin's Buffalo Bills jersey is special. It is autographed by Mark Kelso!
We figured Mark Kelso played for the Bills, so we looked up more information on him. We found out he graduated from William and Mary, so we guessed he must have played football there with Kevin's dad. We asked Kevin's mom at pick up time, and she said that yes, Mark and Kevin's dad played together and have remained friends! Wow!
We enjoy playing pool noodle volleyball whenever there is a big sports game. We play until one of the balloons pops, and we predict that team will lose the game. Today, the Kansas City Chiefs were the red balloon and the San Francisco 49ers were the gold one. We played until we were out of breath, but neither balloon popped! Maybe that means it's a well-matched Super Bowl this year and will be a close (and exciting) game? Or it will end in a tie?! We'll have to watch on Sunday to find out!
Our next football-themed activity was this collaborative coloring project. There were 24 pages, so each of us had to color a couple of them since we had 3 people absent today. We talked about using red and gold (yellow) colors to closely match the Chiefs and 49ers. Then we split up the pictures and sent everyone off to color. This is how the project looked before we colored.
Here's our after version! Isn't it great!? We love projects like this!
Still keeping with our theme, we made a card for Bette Faye. Everyone helped with the coloring and we wrote the message on the inside together. The gist of it was "It doesn't matter who wins, we are cheering for YOU!"
We're posting pics of the front, inside, and back of the card here because we will enjoy looking at it in the future when we go down memory lane via our blog posts. And also because we just love it!
If you're reading, Bette Faye, we hope you loved it too, and we continue to send you well-wishes on your recovery! You'll be doing the splits soon, we just know it! 😜
We got our chocolate fix on Friday, twice. First, we celebrated Hot Chocolate Day. Kacie offered to mix it up for us, and we drank it with our lunch...but we forgot to take a picture. It was delicious and a nice treat!
Choclate fix #2 were these fun (and not too big!) brownies that we cut and decorated to look like footballs. That and the hot chocolate was it for Super Bowl party treats. We think we did pretty well!
Look who we spotted in our bird bath! This is the first time we've seen a bird enjoying the water!
Our brains got a good workout on Super Bowl Friday. We had math problems that dealt with buying concessions at the ball game. Working with a partner and play money, we figured out that it would be expensive to buys things to eat and drink at the Super Bowl!
Becky helped Kate and Sam find out that it would also be expensive to buy souvenirs!
Another brain-exercise we did involved rolling the dice and adding up the numbers. We then colored a jersey on the game sheet that matched our number. Devin watched as Abraham gave his dice a big toss!
After all the jerseys were colored, the winner was the one who got to color the most on the game sheet. Liz had to leave early today, so Nan was Drew's partner. Kevin and Alexis also worked together.
Our final activity was graphing which team we hope will win the Super Bowl. We colored a logo picture for the team we picked, and posted them on the wall under the unpopped balloons from the game this morning. By a slim margin, we predict the Kansas City Chiefs will win Super Bowl LIV!
As we prepare to welcome February next week, we know we'll be busy. Lisa (and Alexis) will be away on a trip to Disney World with family, but Nan will be here, Carol will be back, and Becky will be with us all day Wednesday-Friday. Here's what we'll be doing:
Tuesday: We'll go bowling today and enjoy pizza and apples for lunch. Wonder how many strikes and spares we'll roll?! Kate from Parks & Rec is going to meet us for bowling, too! If the weather is nice, we'll swing by Freedom Park to check on the garden and take a short walk. Wear your Arc shirts!
Wednesday: It will be a busy morning as we work in the computer lab to creat our February calendar. We will also have a belated Groundhog Day lesson, since they are so much fun to learn about! Dress to stretch for Yoga with Patti. Lunch on your own.
Thursday: We'll learn about state number 26, Michigan, today. In fact, there is so much to do in regards to Michigan, we don't have any other lessons on the agenda! We'll have Kellogg's cereal and Jiffy biscuits for lunch, as both of those companies are headquartered in Michigan.
Friday: We will wrap up the week by celebrating Send a Card to a Friend Day and Women in Sports Day. It's also Fettucine Alfredo Day, so we'll prepare fettucine alfredo for lunch. It's also National Wear Red Day, which is observed to bring attention to preventing heart disease in women. Feel free to wear RED today!
🠶🠶🠶NOTE: Since Lisa will be traveling, there will not be a blog update posted next week (Saturday, February 8). We will update the blog as a group activity on Tuesday, the 11th, and post it that evening. For planning purposes, everyone needs to wear Arc shirts and bring lunch on Tuesday, February 11!
Have a great weekend,
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
