As we often wonder, where does the time go? We couldn't believe this week was April already! There was a lot going on with us, as usual. Carol picked a nice week for a vacation in the mountains, and we welcomed Allison to fill in for her. On Tuesday we had a blast bowling and being pranked at lunch by Lisa for April Fool's Day! Wednesday found us volunteering at Grove and finishing the egg stuffing job for Powhatan Secondary. By Thursday we were ready for a movie day and enjoyed comparing the film version of The Wild Robot to the book we recently read. Our week wrapped up on Friday with a PSP work day and a celebration of Burrito Day for lunch! We did much more, too...read on to see the rest of the story!
Tuesday, April 1
One of our favorite days each month is the first Tuesday when we go bowling, and then have pizza for lunch. We were happy to welcome Gail as our newest member to the Arc of Abilities today, and we found out that she loves bowling...and pizza!
Kate, Gail, Emma, Abraham
Cameron joined us for a couple of days this week. He bowled on Lane 1 with Laura, Liz, and Xavier.
Devin, Bryan, Sam, Erik
Drew, Annmarie, Alexis, Patrick
Carol told everyone to bowl spares and strikes while she was gone. She would be proud of us! We had 16 bowlers today and they combined for 17 strikes and 28 spares!
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Allison gives Laura high fives for her strike; Xavier was thumbs up for a spare; Michelle noticed some new stuffies in the arcade!
After lunch, Lisa said she had made brownies for us. We rushed up to get one from the box, only to be pranked for April Fool's Day...there we brown E's in the box, made from paper! We laughed and were good sports about it, but we were very happy to find out that Lisa had another box to share and inside of it were chocolate brownies! (She also pranked us at lunch by swapping out Cheetos for carrots!) Happy April Fool's Day!
This morning began with some of our hardworking library leaders taking care of business in the JRES Library. Carol is away, but her workers don't play!
Alexis, Bryan, Emma, and Laura showed Allison, who is filling in for Carol, how they shelve books in the JRES Library each week. Allison said they did a great job! 👏👏
After our dance warm up, Lisa took a group to volunteer at GCOC while Allison and Nan stayed at AFCC with the others to finish the egg stuffing job.
We were happy to see Peggy, Joel, and Tom back at GCOC this week, along with Thom, who was there last week. But we missed Ursula, who had to leave before we arrived.
Ursula left a tasty treat of chocolate dipped strawberries, which Peggy served us! They were soooo delicious, and perfect for toasting Joel, who had a birthday last Friday. We sang to him! Thank you very much for the strawberries, Ursula. They were kind of fancy, and made us feel very special!
Meanwhile, at the center...
Bryan cut hundreds of stickers apart while Gail, Erik, Liz, Laura, Kate, Devin, and volunteer Destiny stuffed hundreds of eggs with candy.
Nan, Emma, and Michelle stuffed stickers and tattoos into the hundreds of eggs the others had stuffed with candy. Later, Allison, Emma, Alexis, and Bryan took inventory so we would know how many small eggs we stuffed. Altogether, we stuffed a little over 700 large eggs and about 400 small ones! It's going to be a nice egg hunt for the kids at Powhatan Secondary! Thanks again, Coach Teri, for hooking us up for this job each year!
After lunch we finished our read-aloud, The Wild Robot. Tomorrow we are going to watch the movie, and then compare the two.
Our last activity of the day was a lesson about ferrets because....believe it or not...it's National Ferret Day! We learned that black-footed ferrets are the only species native to North America, and they are endangered with less than 500 left in the wild. This surprised us because when we work at Pet Supplies Plus, we sometimes see ferrets for sale, and we don't think of them as a wild animal. After our video, we completed brain work.
The scientific name for ferrets is mustela putorius furo, and our video said it can be interpreted as "mouse-killing stinky thief!"
Emma found ferrets to be an interesting animal, and also a very "cute" one. She took extra notes, writing all over her brain work page!
Thursday, April 3
We had a great day! First thing this morning, a few of our early bird arrivals took it upon themselves to do some Eaton work! Liz, Alexis, and Emma got started with applying gaskets. Soon, they had Bryan cutting more gaskets off the big roll, and Drew and Kevin sorting parts! Carol was not here to ask them to do this extra work during what is usually free time while we wait for everyone to arrive, but she would be so proud of them! 👏👏
Once everyone had arrived, we had an active dance warm up, and then it was time for The Wild Robot movie. Destiny and Liz handed out popcorn, which Allison had popped and bagged for us. We all got comfy and settled in for the film. We were looking for differences between the book and the movie, and there were quite a few, but the essence of the book came through, and everyone agreed it was a very good movie. That made us happy, because the book was very good, too, and we had high expectations!
After the movie we went outside to celebrate National Walking Day, which was yesterday, but it didn't matter to us. We usually get in at least a short walk each day, so we know we're doing well at keeping ourselves moving. Today, we did several laps around the garden, and then headed toward the camera for this official "Walking Day" photo!
Another celebration today was for Find a Rainbow Day. Emma, aka, Lady Rainbow, read about it from the National Day Calendar website, and then we watched a video where we learned how rainbows form when white light is separated into colors through refraction. We spent some time on what that meant, and then learned some fun facts: there are 9 different types of rainbows; a rainbow at night is rare, but it's called a moonbow; and rainbows are actually circular, and the only way to see one in its entirety is from the air. Emma saw a full rainbow when she was flying last year. Check it out!
We couldn't find our prisms, so we didn't go outside to try and "find" a rainbow, but we did do a fun demonstration in which the colors of Skittles candies dispersed in water and made what looked like a rainbow. That was fun! We also went on a rainbow scavenger hunt to find things that matched the colors in a rainbow (ever heard of a rainbow's best friend, ROY G. BIV?). Finally, we ate the leftover Skittles so we could "Taste the Rainbow!"
Will it work?
WOW! That was fun!
Lady Rainbow spotted a rainbow bracelet on Patrick! We love it when our guys have fun with our lessons by dressing the part!
Friday, April 4
Our morning was super busy with some of us working at Pet Supplies Plus and others delivering the stuffed eggs to our friends at Powhatan Secondary. The egg delivery crew also prepped lunch. The AC in our room was not working today, and it was a bit warm and humid, so we took it as easy as we could the rest of the day and wrapped things up after lunch with indoor corn hole because there were too many bees swarming around our outside spot! Here's our Friday:
Thank you, Powhatan Secondary for trusting us with the job of stuffing over 1,000 eggs for your Easter egg hunt! It was fun delivering them and getting to meet Bree. We are looking forward to our celebratory pizza party!
Our PSP crew was busy, as usual, stocking shelves, dusting, and folding towels. All with big smiles on their faces!!
Our crew wants to remind you that it's time to do Easter shopping for your favorite furry friends. PSP has a great selection, but get there soon or it may all hop away with someone else!
Our room smelled like a Mexican restaurant by the time we finished cooking chicken burritos for our celebration of National Burrito Day. It was officially yesterday, but we celebrate when it fits our schedule! Thanks again to Allison, who substituted for Carol all this week. She's a keeper!!
Spring Bingo! Listen carefully to the clues...
Corn hole to end the week (and a giant fan blowing in the background, which helped). The boys won today! Abraham is missing from the photo because he volunteered to play on the girls' team so we would have even numbers. Despite him scoring 4 points for them, they came up short, 23-22, against the boys' team. The girls didn't mind...and we don't think Abraham did either. 😜 All of our players were good sports! 😍
Next week the WJCC schools are on Spring Break, but we'll be at AFCC as usual. Here are our plans:
Tuesday: We'll begin our spring sessions with the master gardeners today at Freedom Park! We'll discuss soil and nutrients, conduct a soil test, and plant onions, radish, spinach, and lettuce. The herb of the day will be chamomile. We'll return to AFCC to celebrate Sam's birthday with a hot dog luncheon sponsored by his parents! 🌭🌭🌭 Yum! It's going to be a happy day! Arc shirts optional. Feel free to wear spring/garden attire if you'd like!
Wednesday: It's GCOC volunteer day, so please wear Arc shirts. Some of us will work in our herb garden with Allison and Carol as we prepare for planting this year's herb crop with our MG friends. We'll also have fun celebrating Unicorn Day and begin a fun Easter craft using pasta. Lunch on your own. NO JRES CAFETERIA because the schools are closed for Spring Break. Microwave available.
Thursday: Today is National Farm Animals Day so we will learn some fun and very interesting things about a few of them. We'll finish the Easter pasta craft we began yesterday and also make birthday cards for Jorie, our first friend at Eaton! Breakfast for lunch today: pancakes, sausage, boiled eggs (that we will have fun shelling using various techniques), and orange juice.
Friday: Today is an Eaton work day, so please wear Eaton shirts and bring a bagged lunch. We'll watch the weather (and pollen) and hopefully enjoy lunch and a walk at the park. There will also be farm animal themed yoga with Jaime!
Enjoy the weekend,
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
