We are just finished our first DC4K session at Oak Grove Baptist Church in Youngsville, NC. I hope some of the rest of you will evaluate your group and share your discoveries with me.
First of all the good things:
* We had a fantastic co-leader. Miss Diane is the most organized person I have ever worked with. She makes my job so easy. She always has all the art projects set up; all the materials and supplies on hand and she studies the lesson plan. She is easy going and dependable. So my first suggestion for anyone that wants a successful DC4K - find yourself a Miss Diane who can be a strong behind the scenes kind of leader.
* The kids had a good time. They laughed and kidded around a lot and seem to enjoy each other.
* The kids loved the read aloud stories. When it was my turn to do the stories, I was pretty dramatic and expressive. I did not use the questions at the end. We let the kids choose a blanket or a pillow to use during story time.
* The kids seemed to enjoy and connect with the Safe Keepers and the Jr. Safe Keepers.
* I think we connected pretty well with the parents. A lot of communication with the parent took place on Facebook after the kids were in bed. We did a lot of IMs back and forth.
* This group of kids loved the group games.
Some of the mistakes we made or bad habits we slipped into:
* We were never on time with our schedule. That's mostly my fault. We started at 6:30 but most of the kids were late. Then instead of directing the kids into stations, the kids milled around for awhile. Next session I'm going to work on training the greeter a little better and helping them understand part of their job is to get the kids into stations.
* We got kind of sloppy with our stations. Toward the end our kids tended to wander back and forth between stations. We need to work harder next time encouraging the kids to finish what they are working on and then move to the next station.
* We need better boundaries at the snack and break bread time. We had a couple of kids that wanted to stand up and eat or take their food to another station.
* Our circle up time needs to be worked on. I think I'm going to move the circle up to a different area next session. Where we had it, the sound echoed and seemed to be too loud.
* Our Treasure Box was a disaster. We need to figure out how to push this better next session.
* I kept forgetting to do the Alphabet Stretches. The kids did pretty good with them but I got rushed and forget them. Have to work on me!!!!
* Our music got completely lost. Next session we have got to do better with this.
We have seen a lot of healing. I know this because of what the parents told me. After Facebooking about how much fun the kids had with the "Loving Is" charades, one of the moms whose child was sick that Monday wanted me to explain how to play it so she could play it at home with her sick son. How cool is that?
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