Welcome to 2023! We were happy to return to our Arc of Abilities routine this week! It's always as if we never took a break. Our week was busy and seamless, just as we like it. Here's a recap of our start to the new year...
Tuesday
Since it was the first Tuesday of the month, bowling was on our agenda, but we made a quick stop by the garden to see how things were looking in light of the winter weather we had recently. There was a lot of brown, and the master gardeners had cut away much of the growth, but we know after winter passes, spring will bring the color back. We'll be on the lookout!
Krafty Karen told us the Christmas cold snap did a number on the turnip and mustard greens, and she was right. It looks as though we've turned our backs on them, but we would never do that! (It just made for an interesting photo op today.) Karen says the turnip greens on the boys' side will rebound in spring, but the mustard greens, on the girls' side, are done. We're glad we got a sample before the holidays. They were good! We didn't notice any insects living in the hibernation box Karen made, but we will check the garden again in a few weeks, and hopefully see that some insects have found a warm home there.
We had not been bowling very long before the strikes and spares starting showing up on the scoreboards! Laura got one of the first strikes of the day, and in this picture, Alexis was giving her a high five while Devin T also called out congrats to her!
What goes around comes around, Devin T, because no sooner had you congratulated Laura, you got a strike of your own! 🎳 👏
We're not kidding about the strikes and spares. Look at this scoreboard after just 4 frames. Over 1/2 of the turns taken were strikes or spares, and ALL of the scoreboards looked like this! Our guys were on 🔥🔥🔥 today!
.jpg)
Adia was excited to get two strikes in a row! She ended up with three for the day.
Just as exciting was our pizza lunch! We are very thankful to Kate and the Thompson Family for sponsoring pizza for us at the lanes today!! It was a Happy New Year treat that means a lot! We appreciate your generosity! Yummy!! 😋🍕
We got back to the center later than we anticipated, so we postponed updating our January calendar to tomorrow. We had a bit of Choice Time, and then shared details of our wonderful Winter Break with each other. We always enjoy hearing about our friends' family times. Drew brought in a note from his mom that detailed a few of the fun things he did, and Devin B helped him share with us that he got some rocking new music from Santa, and enjoyed a lot of dancing and Bingo playing with his sister, Alex!
On another note, Lisa took our amaryllis plant home over the break because it didn't bloom before we closed for the holiday. Here is a picture taken on Christmas Eve. The amaryllis had 4 blooms by then! It was very pretty. Note to selves: For 2023, we will have to start our bulb about a week earlier so we can see it bloom at the center.
Wednesday
After our dance warm up, we worked on updating our calendar and removing holiday decorations. This time, we had to change the month and the year!
Our usual tasks needed to be done: creating calendar squares with pictures found online that match our activities, removing out of date decorations from the walls, and creating new ones for the updated month. Everyone chips in to complete the job within an hour's time!
We are very focused whether we are working alone, like Dev B and Lexi, or helping each other, like Drew and Adia!
We thought it would be nice to get fresh air for our morning movment activity, so we went outside after working on the calendar. It's always fun to shoot hoops with friends... or walk around and observe the hoop shooting! 😊
Some of our guys wore jackets, some long sleeves, and others short sleeves. One can even be spotted in shorts! It was a very mild morning, despite the cloudy skies!
January 4th is designated as World Braille Day, so we had a history lesson in which we learned that a French man named Louis Braille, who was blind himself, invented the alphabet that was named after him. We also watched an interesting video about Helen Keller, who was both blind and deaf, and we were inspired by her accomplishments in life. For brain work, this group took a "test" and aced every question about Helen Keller's life!
Sam and Devin's brain work consisted of fitting words into a crossword puzzle type grid, but there were no clues to tell them which words went in which boxes. There was a bit of guessing and checking, as they made sure words with a certain number of letters would fit while also providing letters that would work for words in a different direction. Good team work, here!
After lunch we celebrated National Trivia Day with a Bingo game involving snippets of songs from Disney films. After listening to the song clues for a while, Devin "Sweet T" jumped up to dance, and Adia and Kate soon joined in. Sometimes, you just can't stay in your seat!
Today was a Pet Supplies Plus work day, but not all of us went. Kate, Xavier, Abraham, and Annmarie were part of the Cooking Crew that stayed at the center. They prepped our forks by wrapping them in napkins and adding festive napkin rings they colored for our celebration of National Spaghetti Day!
Nan, Patrick, and Sam prepped about 1,000 pieces of garlic bread for lunch. Just kidding....it was only 500 pieces! OK, maybe a whole loaf?! 😁
Liz, Kevin, and Devin T made a great team as they put together healthy and colorful side salads! 🥗🥗🥗
Over at Pet Supplies Plus, Laura and Alexis worked together to make sure labels on the cans of dog food were all facing in the same direction.
Adia and Erik got a nod of approval from Scott after they folded two loads of towels!
Scott also worked with his son, Devin B, and Drew, to move heavy bags of dog food from top shelves to lower ones. Our guys also dusted and swept today. They were busy!
The Pet Supplies group made a stop at Eaton on the way back to drop off some work we completed at AFCC, and when they finally got back they were starving! We would like to thank Erik's mom, Diane, for contributing two delicious pans of baked spaghetti to our Holiday Party last month. We were able to freeze enough leftovers to have for National Spaghetti Day, which was technically yesterday, but we fit things in when we can! Diane, your baked spaghetti is really good, and we enjoyed it so much! 😋😘😋😘
We finished Clean Getaway today! Lisa set a goal for us to finish 1 read aloud book each month this year...so we will officially begin January's book tomorrow. Wonder what it will be?! 📚 👓
There are a few days throughout the year that are dedicated to birds, and January 5th is National Bird Day. In a first for us, we had a funeral for a bird today! Sadly, a small chickadee flew into one of our windows, and did not survive. It seemed appropriate to write farewell messages on paper towels to the bird. We then wrapped it in the paper towels for a burial outside. (Our guys wrote very touching messages to the bird. It was sweet!)
We used biodegradable paper towels, so as the bird's body decomposes, so will the paper.
Carol dug a deep enough hole, and Devin B carefully placed the bird in it. It's sad that this bird won't get to enjoy eating at our feeders, but we're happy that we were able to give it a fitting farewell.
Speaking of birds eating at our feeders, we would like to thank Pet Supplies Plus for this awesome donation of bird feed today! It should last a while, and we know the birdies will appreciate it during the cold winter season!
We ended our day with a video about birdwatching and we also checked out a website that described different types of bird beaks, and how the birds use them. Then, we made feeders using toilet paper rolls and peanut butter, as Annmarie demonstrates here. Time ran short, so we will hang them outside tomorrow!
Friday
It was a busy day, but we got so much done! We sang and danced to our usual dance warm up to begin the day, then went out to hang the bird feeders we made yesterday. Cameron came for a visit today, and was happy to help Liz tie her feeder to the fence around the garden area.
When we came back inside, it was time to celebrate National Bean Day! We had several games/activities to try that used beans for a theme. Devin, Kate, Liz, and Laura were playing Spill the Beans, a game kind of like Scrabble, only instead of using letter tiles, they used letter beans to spell words.
Meanwhile, Alexis, Drew, Devin T, and Sam were playing Don't Spill the Beans, the classic game where players hope they don't add the bean that causes the pot to spill. We heard a lot of giggles from this table!
Patrick and Annmarie got creative and used a variety of dried beans to create art. Pat was working on making the logo for the Braves, while Annmarie made a flower garden.
After our bean activities, we celebrated National Technology Day by using our Smartphones to help us follow QR code links to check our work on math problems. In this photo, Kate had just scanned a code and Drew was about to find out he had correctly answered a problem that involved counting! Devin "Sweet T" was getting ready for his turn next!
Nan's group consisted of Laura, Sam, Xavier, and Kevin. They were also doing the counting activity, and in this picture, Laura was surprised and happy to see that she had come up with a correct answer!
Erik and Liz were seriously concentrating on solving math problems (they used the "old-fashioned" paper/pencil strategy) before following the QR code to check their answers. Liz was scanning one of their problems here to find out if they had solved it correctly, which they had!
Cameron, Adia, and Devin B were also solving math problems, but they didn't need paper/pencil OR a calculator, because, as Adia put it, "Cameron is super-fast at mental math!" Devin B diligently followed the QR codes to check their work, and they were always correct, too! ALL of our guys are good thinkers!
After lunch we tried the Black Bean Brownies. Not everyone would give them a go, but Sam volunteered to be first and once he said they were "delish," most everyone else joined in! They were moist and very fudgy, and loaded with fiber since the black beans (which we made into a paste using the food processor) were a main ingredient!
Of course, the black bean and gluten-free brownies weren't calorie free, so it was good that we had yoga with Jaime on the schedule at the end of the day! Her yoga sessions involve a lot of getting up and down, so we consider them a moderate workout!
Yoga brought us to the end of the day and the end of our first week of 2023. It was a great one to kick off what we know will be a fabulous year!
We will be on the road a bit next week! It's going to be a fun one, too. Here's what we have planned:
Tuesday: Today we will stay at the center for the morning and have lessons for Houseplant Appreciation Day and Save the Eagles Day (a yearly favorite). We hope the weather will cooperate for us to go to W&M's campus for a walk and "secret sites" scavenger hunt in the afternoon. We did this a few years ago and it was so much fun! Lunch on your own. JRES Cafeteria is available and is offering Beef Soft Taco or "School" Pizza (not Domino's). Arc shirts optional today.
Wednesday: After a lengthy break due to the pandemic, we're going to return to volunteering in the library at JRES! We'll send a crew down first thing to see if they remember how to shelve books for Mr. Nonnemacher, who is thrilled we are coming back to help! We will also kick off the birthday season with a belated celebration for Karryna, our Parks & Rec partner and friend. Her birthday was December 29, during Winter Break, so we chose today for her party! Since tomorrow is National Curried Chicken Day, we'll get a jump on that with curried chicken, rice, and cucumber salad for lunch. (Karryna said she loves curried chicken!) We'll also have a lesson with Mystery Doug where we will learn why January is the first month of the new year.
Thursday: It's Happy New Year with Mike at the Watermen's Museum today! We are looking forward to another year of fun and engaging visits with him. If it's not too cold, we'll eat under the tent at the museum, or possibly down at the picnic area if it's mild enough, so bring a bagged lunch. Also, wear Arc shirts and comfy pants for yoga when we return to the center!
Friday: Today it's Happy New Year with Eaton as we head over for our first work day of 2023 with them! We're excited to begin a new assembly project that Jorie has been telling us about, which we may or may not start today?!?! Wear Eaton shirts and bring a bagged lunch.
Happy New Year to all,
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.