Welcome, 2022!

 

Happy New Year!  We're happy to be back at the Arc of Abilities for 2022, even though we started our week with a snow day on Tuesday! (After a weekend when some may have worn shorts!)  We've got exciting plans for this year, including kicking off our new vocational partnership with Pet Supplies Plus, which will begin next Friday.  Thanks for checking out our blog.  We hope you enjoy following our adventures!  Here's how we got the new year off to a great start...

Wednesday

It had been almost 3 weeks since our friends said good-bye for Winter Break, so they were happy to be reunited!   You'll notice we are back to wearing masks indoors.  We felt this mitigation strategy was necessary in light of the rampant spread of the omicron variant, along with it being cold and flu season.  Our guys have done a great job wearing them correctly this week!  We're also (as usual) emphasizing the importance of proper hand washing.  

We always begin our week with "Move It, Move It!"  (Although Lisa thought we needed to "move it" a little more than this video shows!)

We updated the calendar to welcome January!  Kevin was quite efficient in resetting the dates on our pocket chart.  

Michelle was working with a computer that was super slow today.  It turns out it needed an update, so we took care of that after she finished her calendar squares.  Patrick was about to print his pictures so he could finish his calendar squares.

Over on this side of the room we had several things going on, including coloring letters for our "JANUARY" wall, adding finishing touches to calendar squares, and way in the back, Sam removing December decorations from our walls.

Drew patiently stuffed the pockets with our event squares as his friends finished them.  We have lots of fun things to look forward to this month including a trip to Regal Theaters for a private screening on January 11, a visit from our friend Cameron on the 13th and 14th (we'll celebrate his birthday), and a return to bowling on January 18th!  Happy New Year to us!

We got in some late-morning fitness with a fun video workout that had us trying to track down space aliens!  Bonus - we learned fun facts about each of the 8 planets!

Lunch today was interesting...we combined our leftover holiday meatballs with spaghetti sauce so we could celebrate National Spaghetti Day, which was yesterday.  We called this a "mash up" as our holiday meatballs were flavored by combining bbq sauce with cranberry sauce, and today we added red pasta sauce to it!  The result was sweet and tomato-y, and really tasty!  Our side salad was awesome, too.  We would like to send a huge thank you to Devin's family for giving us a Harris-Teeter gift card for Christmas!  Their generous gift will provide groceries for us for weeks.  😘

Drew was delighted to "sing" one of his favorite silly songs for us in celebration of Spaghetti Day.  Here's his rendition of "On Top of Spaghetti!" 🕺  Way to go, Drew!

Today was National Bird Day.  Devin and Xavier demonstrate how we made peanut butter feeders to place outside near the Grove Community Garden, where we have spotted a few birds.  We haven't seen any birds at the feeders outside our windows since the construction of a nearby parking lot resulted in the loss of a lot of trees.  It's sad, and we miss them!

Liz helped roll the peanut butter covered tubes in birdseed.

Devin and Sam also carried our "regular" bird feeders to the garden area.  We really hope the birds will return to eating from them if we relocate them closer to the woods.

Kevin and Kate hung their homemade feeders on the fence.

Happy New Year to the birdies!  

Thursday

Today was National Bean Day, but we didn't cook with beans because we are planning to make bean soup next week.  Instead, we watched an informative video clip about how healthy beans are, and then made winter mosaics by gluing colorful dried beans into fun shapes.  Michelle made Olaf!

Patrick and Laura were loaded with concentration as they carefully glued their beans.  Patrick made a winter hat, and Laura made a snowflake!

In our video, we learned that there are over 40,000 species of beans grown on our planet, but just a fraction of them are grown for consumption.  We only used a few of the species, but that was enough to make these works of art.  Can you spot snowmen, mugs of hot chocolate, a mitten, a hat with a pompom on top, and a one of a kind snowflake?!

Our morning movement was a walk outside, and we got to check the birdfeeders.  We could see that several of the ones we made with peanut butter and birdseed had been nibbled at, and one of our feeders was about 1/4 empty.  

We saw a bird on this feeder, and tried to get its picture.  We're happy to know the birds are still around, even though they aren't being spotted outside our window.  Next week we're going to move the feeders a little closer to our window.  We're hoping to lead the birds back to our area!

We celebrated Technology Day by using our smartphones, and "old-school" calculators, to make addition and subtraction more fun.  First, someone had to scan a QR (quick reader) code to get a clue about the math problem.

Next, someone had to use the calculator to find the answer to the math problem, which correlated to one of the QR code cards.    

 

The "searcher" (Drew) had to find the answer so we would know which QR code to scan next.  At the end, we were all successful at solving the problems and got a final message that said, "Great job!"

We didn't have time yesterday for our scavenger hunt on bird facts, so we squeezed it in before lunch today.  A fun (???) fact we learned is that a group of crows is called a "murder." 😲  We much preferred learning that a group of geese is called a "gaggle!"

Xavier was busy today helping us color some decorative pictures for our walls.  Also shown in this photo is his bean art, a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows!  ☕

Gosh, we were busy today.  We even had time to talk about Bobblehead Day...it's a real thing and it's on January 7th!  We checked out the Bobblehead Hall of Fame website and learned you can order a bobblehead of yourself!  In keeping with our winter room decor theme, we made snowmen bobbles.  Cute, cute, cute!

We moved yoga to today because we will be at Eaton tomorrow.  We decided to enjoy Jaime's Holiday Yoga Club episode since we ran out of time back in December.  It was fun and Jaime looked very festive in her Christmas tree hat.

Today was January 6, which is the "12th Day of Christmas," so we thought it was appropriate to still be festive as well!

What a fun and busy day!

Friday

We were excited to return to Eaton for our first work day of 2022!  Jorie had told us they had a lot of work for us, and she was right.  One task was something new, and Jorie trained us on it.  We had to bag sets of parts and screws, and there were 4 different combinations to keep track of!

We also had to seal the bags shut once we correctly packed them, but this turned out to be too tricky for our guys to do, so Lisa handled that part.

Laura and Drew were counting different amounts of screws and putting them in bags while Michelle and Patrick made sure the other components were correctly counted and placed in the bags.  James stopped by to check on our progress with the new task, and he was very pleased!!  One less thing on his to-do list!  We're happy to help, James!

It's a task we've done many times before, but Liz, Alexis, Carol, and Nan have the "touch" when it comes to unpacking light bulbs!  They unpacked about 1,000 today!

We have never seen this much sorting before, at least 2 super bins and 10 regular-sized bins.  We've got this!  After Xavier, Sam, Kevin, and Devin sorted these, they moved on to snapping small pieces off of larger pieces called water plates.  All the while, our playlist was on in the background (Thanks, Liz!).  Everyone was singing and working during our productive work day!  Oh, and doesn't the freshly painted blue floor at Eaton look beautiful?!

It was indeed a productive day, and those are all the pictures we got, so we'll call it a week!  Here's what's happening at the AoA next week:

Tuesday:  We're going to the movie theater today for the first time in a couple of years!  Laura's family gave her a private screening of Sing 2 for Christmas, and we're all invited!  No one will be in the theater except us, so we feel comfortable with this "normal" experience, but masks will still be worn.  Please wear Arc shirts today, too.  😊 We'll spend the morning at the center and have an early lunch on your own (JRES cafeteria is available).  Then, we will head to Regal Theaters for the 1:00 movie, including popcorn!  Thank you Palmer family, for including us in Laura's fun gift!  Pick up for car riders today will be in front of the fountain at Regal in New Town at 3:00.  WATA has been contacted and plans to pick up our riders at the theater, but WATA families, please follow-up if your associate is a rider.  If your associates usually ride to the Rec Center on the vans, you will still pick up there.  

Wednesday:  We'll study eagles, one of our favorite topics, since today is Save the Eagles Day.  It's also Curried Chicken Day, so we'll prepare curried chicken quinoa for lunch along with a side of naan bread.  We'll have winter-themed math and craft activities, too!

Thursday:  It's birthday time today!  Our friend Cameron is visiting today and tomorrow.  We'll celebrate his birthday with a Pizza Party for lunch!  Thank you to Cameron's family for this special treat!  We'll also have fun with it being Rubber Ducky Day, and we'll enjoy a Mystery Doug episode about bugs in winter!

Friday:  Today we will begin our work at Pet Supplies Plus.  A small group will work there for a couple of hours this morning, but we want everyone to wear their Pet Supplies Plus shirts.  It's National Bagel Day tomorrow, so we're going to revisit a delicious homemade recipe we tried last year!  Lunch today will be homemade bagels and bean soup.  For fun we'll celebrate National Hat Day, which is also tomorrow.  Feel free to wear your favorite hat or cap inside today!  Finally, we'll end the week with yoga, so dress to stretch.

We're looking forward to seeing everyone next week.  Have a great weekend!

Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang

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