Happy New Year to all of our Arc of Abilities families and friends! Like everyone, we are looking forward to brighter days ahead in 2021...bring them on!
The AoA reopened with virtual sessions this week, so our families could isolate at home to give us some extra "insurance" against the virus following the holiday season. We look forward to resuming our time together at the AFCC beginning next Tuesday, January 12th.
Here is a "mini" blog, a glimpse at what we've been up to over the holidays and during our virtual week!
Wow! That's a beautiful tree in Kingsmill that Kate got to help Santa flip the switch to light up! Good job, Kate!
Here are Kevin and his sisters, Julia and Courtney, on Christmas morning. We wonder if their mom, Debbie, made them pose for this picture before seeing what Santa brought! 🎅
Look at the concentration on Kevin's face as he worked on one of his new puzzles. Way to go, Kevin!
Michelle had her buddy, Seamus, to protect her gifts!
Cameron and his dad, Brian, look even more like twins in their new matching duds monogramed with the Arc logo!
Check out this delightful picture of Xavier playing one of the new games he got for Christmas! Looks like fun!
Alexis and Haley assembled a gingerbread train! Cute and yummy!
Alexis also enjoyed cuddle time with her new cousin, Jordan.
Devin and his family celebrated New Year's Eve at home! They look very festive in their eyewear!
Sam and his family spent the week after Christmas at their recently acquired beach cottage in OBX. Sam was helping his dad, Tim, with some electrical work and was surprised to see that the parts were from Eaton! Cool!
Look who got to take a walk in CW with Drew!! It's Meemaw! Glad to see y'all bundled, and masked, up! We miss you both!
We had Zoom sessions this week, Tuesday-Friday. During Tuesday's session, we were so happy to see each other again! We spent most of the time catching up with how everyone spent their holidays, and then we celebrated National Trivia Day (Jan. 4th) with a fun Disney Movie Jeopardy game. It was great to be back together!
Here's a shot from Wednesday's session, when we learned about ways animals survive the winter (hibernation, migration, adaptation). We also heard from Kevin about his fun holidays, since he didn't get to share on Tuesday. He told us about having a great meal of steak! 😋
We smiled on Wednesday when Moose Patti (second row, left) popped on to say "hi!" She was working at Nan's house. She wished us a Happy New Year and we wished her the same! We also got to "meet" Tracy's new intern, Liz (third row, right, with Tracy)! Welcome to Parks and Rec, and The Arc, Liz!
The reason we are rubbing balloons on our hair during Thursday's Zoom is because we were trying to create static electricity! Drew and Scott were able to get Alex's hair to stand up! (Second row, right!)
Laura's mom submitted this close up of Olivia getting Laura's hair to stand up, too! Fun!
Here, Alexis had a negatively charged balloon that was "attracting" the pencil, making the pencil spin around on top of the bottle.
If you look closely in this picture, you can see that Elizabeth and Devin were able to get their balloons to "stick" to the wall and bookshelf in their homes! (Top row, center and right.)
Before ending our session, we saw a video clip demonstrating how to make water bend using static electricity. We hope some of our friends tried this at home!
We had fun with balloons and static electricity!
We ended our virtual Zoom week on Friday with a lesson about the first cartoon. Mystery Doug had an episode where he invited a special guest named Brittany, who is an animator for Disney, to share how cartoons came to be! It was interesting!
We learned that early cartoons consisted of flipping pictures quickly, but it was hard for them to tell a story in the early days. In 1914, animators were able to create a cartoon about a dinosaur named Gertie, that actually told a story and the rest is, you know...history!
After learning about how cartoons came to be, we tried a simple activity where we drew two stick figure pictures, with slight changes between them, and then flipped the pages to make it look like the figures were moving - animation!
Xavier's and our friend, the artistic Steve, joined us and helped Xavier with his animation.
Alexis rolled the top flap of paper over the pencil, then rolled the pencil back and forth to raise and lower the top part, making it look like her stick figure was moving.
Steve helped Xavier add details to his drawing. Look at the focus on both of their faces!
Looks like Steve decided to draw Xavier, too! That's really good! Thanks for popping in today, Steve!
We'd like to thank all the moms, dads, brothers, sisters, and friends who helped our guys with Zoom this week from the safety of your homes! We couldn't have done it without you!
Next week, we will resume in-person AoA sessions at the AFCC. We'll still have our gang split into the Tuesday/Wednesday and Thursday/Friday groups. Our plan is to thoroughly review our safety and cleaning protocols and expectations, and get right back to business. We will go back to Zooming on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10, so as to spend time with our friends at home. Here's what we have on our agenda for the coming week, January 12-15:
Tuesday / Thursday: We will work on setting up our January calendar (we have a new one to put on the bulletin board!) and decorate our room for the new year. January 10 is Save the Eagles Day, so we will have a lesson about our national bird. We'll also make cheer cards for a certain Arc of GW board president who is recovering from knee replacement surgery (😍), and will possibly have some Eaton work! Lunch on your own.
Wednesday / Friday: We'll have fun "celebrating" Rubber Ducky Day and Sticker Day (both Jan. 13). We still have five states to study before we finish all 50 (which we began in July of 2019!), so this week we will learn about the 46th state, Oklahoma. Sonic Drive-In got its start in Oklahoma, so for lunch we'll make Cherry Limeade w/ "popcorn" ice from Sonic, along with grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken noodle soup. We may also have Eaton work!
Have a great weekend!
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
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