We are eight months into our unusual, challenging, never-to-be forgotten Covid Pandemic of 2020, but we still have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving! Our guys worked with Lilly on a gratitude lesson and named everything from family and friends, food, shelter, pets, and clothing to being back in our AoA routine (of sorts, anyway), our governor and state taking steps to keep us safe, and a vaccine on the horizon as things they are grateful for in 2020! There are always lots of reasons for gratitude!
Our week was short, but busy and fun. Check it out!
Monday
Every year since we began the day program in 2016, the Monday of Thanksgiving week has been the only Monday we are open. We do that so we can have Wednesday off for preparations or, in many family's cases, traveling. That meant our guys came for two days that week. This year was different, since we have split our groups for smaller numbers, and each group only came for one day. Our Tuesday / Wednesday group came on Monday this week.
We had to cut our dance warm up a little short so we could do lunch prep before our Zoom session at 10. We were having salad with chicken for lunch and oatmeal cookies for dessert. Nancy and Sam worked together to prepare the salad veggies.
Kevin was adding Mrs. Dash Chicken Seasoning to our chicken, and Patrick was standing by to saute it. They worked in the main room, and when the chicken was done, our mouths were watering the rest of the morning from the delicious aroma!
Liz, Lilly, and Alexis were tasked with making oatmeal cookies from scratch. Lilly loves to bake, so this was the perfect group for her to work with!
We had our lunch prep finished by 10, and then we brought up our Zoom session. It was great to see everyone's smiles on a Monday morning! We welcomed Christina from the Art Museums of CW, who graciously agreed to give us another art lesson!
Christina told us about this painting by Edward Hicks. In the picture, he depicts himself as a little boy (bottom right) being read to by Mrs. Twining. He lived with the Twining family as a child, and from this painting, we can tell he had fond memories of their farm. It's hard to spot in this picture taken from our tv screen, but there are two turkeys right in the center. Christina said they represent the only turkeys on display at the museum right now! It's hard to believe that with as many items as the museum has, these are the only turkeys to be found right now. Very cool to know this!
Christina took us step-by-step through the process of drawing a turkey. It's quite simple, with her directions like, "draw half a heart," "draw some w's," "draw a circle," "draw lots of triangles," and so on! We didn't get pictures of everyone's finished products, but they were stellar! Many thanks to our friend, Christina. Thanks for teaching us fun things! We appreciate your continued support and it's always a joyful time when we see you, even if it's on Zoom!
After Zoom we had fun with turkey-themed fitness, and dancing to a fun Thanksgiving playlist, that included songs about foods like mashed potatoes, cornbread, and pumpkin pie! (We forgot to take pics.)
Before lunch, Lilly took over for our continuing education segment. She gave us a lesson on various aspects of Thanksgiving, including why we eat turkey, what it was like for the Pilgrims on the Mayflower, and then a fun segment on how some birds show off their dance moves when trying to attract a mate. This was a bird called the Tragopan pheasant and it's bright blue neck gets seemingly bigger and bigger as it dances! Lilly did a great job and we look forward to more fun and interesting lessons from her!!
Lilly also led us through a writing activity on the subject of gratitude. We really reflected on what that means, and made a list of things close to our hearts. When we shared our lists, everyone listened intently.
Kevin is grateful for lots of family and friends, his dog Bailey, and even getting help from Nan at the AoA!
We went light for lunch this week, since Thursday may be heavy for most of us! We had a beautiful fresh salad topped with grilled chicken, and very soft and tasty oatmeal cookies for dessert. It was perfect!
We used the computer lab to create thank you cards for Cameron's family, who had treated us to pizza last week. We also made birthday cards for Carol. Her special day will be next week, while we are isolating at home following the holiday. We'll celebrate her on Zoom next Thursday. We also told her not to peek at her cards until then!
The boys are looking good as they raise their legs high during yoga. After our busy day, it sure feels good to do stretches like this.
It's the same for the girls. This move involves a twist and a shoulder stretch that feels great! We all agreed that we're thankful for our online yoga teacher, Jaime, too!
Tuesday
For staff, today was a repeat of yesterday, but with different friends. We love how it's always fun to do the same activities with our Thursday / Friday group that we already did with the others, because their unique personalities bring whole new spins to things!
We began today with our lunch prep. Devin and Abraham were tickled pink to work with Lilly to bake what we have determined to be THE BEST oatmeal cookies EVER. If you like them soft and chewy, click the cookie picture for a link to the recipe, and do yourself a favor during this holiday season. These cookies taste like holidays!! Click here for the recipe: 🍪 And by the way, we may or may not have added about a big handful of chocolate chips to the recipe! 😋
Equally good was the sauteed chicken for our salads. Kate was tossing the chicken that she had sprinkled with Mrs. Dash Seasoning. Kate said her father always says a "little more seasoning" is better, so we told her to go for it, and she was right! The chicken was so tasty! Xavier may have added a bit too much oil (which Lisa removed), but he did a good job following directions and also helped saute the chicken!
Of course, our fresh veggies were also delicious! Alexis and Michelle didn't grow them, but they did a great job cutting and chopping, and making sure we had colorful selections for our salad bar. Good job with your knife skills, girls!
During our Zoom session, we danced to a song called "The Turkey Dance." Look at these moves! We wished we could have seen our friends at home dancing, but our screen only shows the music video that's playing. Another thing we really miss is how we always loved dancing together in our big group. We're thankful for fun times on Zoom!
In our Zoom lesson, we watched a SciShow Kids video about turkeys. We learned that the familiar "gobble, gobble" sound only comes from the toms (males), and the hens (females) make a less "gobbly" sound. We learned that turkeys don't have teeth, and that they swallow small stones that remain in their gizzards to help break down their food. Something fun, but kind of gross that we learned, is that toms and hens have different poop patterns! 😂💩😂💩 Ick!
Lilly was the emcee for our game of Zoom Thanksgiving Riddle Bingo. As usual, it was a fun and noisy game...just like the gang likes it!
Xavier and Devin are so focused on their cards, you wouldn't believe it was a noisy game, but it was! We're glad everyone has so much fun playing Bingo!
🎜🎝 There was more dancing after Zoom, but we were so into "turkey-trotting" around the room and checking out songs on a Thanksgiving playlist we found online, that we forgot to take pictures! If you'd like to see the playlist (with video links included), click on the dancing turkey. It's got 28 great tunes (and 1 with a parental advisory, so we didn't play it). We played snippets of many of them, and got lots of exercise! Our favorite? "Let's Turkey Trot" by Little Eva, circa 1965! 🎜🎝
😋😋 Here's a close up of our pre-Thanksgiving lunch...salad topped with chicken! Almost all of our guys eat salads, and we are thankful for that! It was delicious, and of course, nutritious!
Abraham and Devin should be proud of their baking skills! In case you missed it above, here's the link for THE BEST OATMEAL COOKIE RECIPE EVER! (Click on the platter of cookies!) Also, note that we had gluten-free cookies for Xavier. They weren't homemade, but he loved them just the same!
Here's evidence that we ended the day with yoga. Our yoga pics weren't the best today, but we still enjoyed our session with Jaime, especially the "Peace Out" at the end. Everyone headed home well-relaxed and ready for a fun Thanksgiving break.
That's the end of our short week. Thanks for checking it out!
Reminder: We order our day support shirts from A Logo for You, which is a local business. They have opened the online store if you'd like to order more shirts, or any of a number of new items that will have the Arc of Greater Williamsburg's logo on them...just in time for holiday shopping. Here's the link:
We will take extra time to stay safe at home next week, in hopes that we can do our part to keep Covid numbers at bay in our community following a holiday. We hope everyone will join us on Zoom next week, Tuesday-Friday! Lisa will send links on Monday. Here are our Zoom plans:
Tuesday: We'll have a social studies / history lesson as we welcome December with Rosa Parks Day. We'll also see what "World Trick Shot Day" is all about...if you like shooting hoops, you'll like this!
Wednesday: Calling all dog lovers! It's National Mutt Day, so we will celebrate our furry friends (mutts or not) today! For those of you with dogs, feel free to let them join us on Zoom today, and we'll let you tell us all about them, too!
Thursday: It's Carol's birthday today! We'll celebrate her while learning about some interesting birthday traditions around the world. Then, we'll play Scavenger Hunt, so be prepared to find some things around your house to share with the group!
Friday: It's Mystery Zoom Day! Lilly will bring you a lesson on a surprise topic. Check in at 10 to see what it is!! She's looking forward to sharing something cool with you. 👀
Happy Thanksgiving to All!
Hope to "see" you on Zoom next week,
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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