YOU MEDDLING KIDS!!!! *shakes fist*

As bad as the title is, the kids I worked with today were an overall good bunch.
There's a holiday program going on for kids at the community centre and they needed volunteers to help look after the kids because they can't afford to actually hire so many people. It's the holidays so I thought why not. All I would do is just procrastinate my work anyway so why not do something different.

It's funny how I love working with kids in situations like this but can't stand some of them during other times. It was a very fun day though. No doubt about that.

Got to the community centre at 8.15 am but we were supposed to meet at 8.30. The bus times didn't fit out right but what was 15 minutes wait anyway.
Usually it would have been fine but it was bitterly cold this morning and standing outside waiting was no fun at all. My friend Tim came a bit after and two other volunteers Alyssa and Jon arrived after him. The person in charge of the day, Lindy, arrived about 8.30 and we got to wait in the warmth. Emma (Another helper) showed up shortly after.

Both Tim and I got our hands on a reasonably warm vest with the words "Leader" on the back and it was a pretty good vest too. All the volunteers were leaders but there weren't enough vests to go around for Alyssa and my other friend, Jarrod who came late. We got briefed on what we were doing for the day and that a kid with Asperger's was coming today. They told us how to handle him and that his little brother did not have Asperger's even though he acts like he does because he mimics his brother. Parents started to drop their kids off early. They were supposed to be there between 9-9.30 but they started coming around 8.45

Brought them into the indoor basketball court/hall and they played with the balls for a bit while the 4 of us awkwardly stand around looking at how the other 3 leaders interacted with the kids.
Pass a few balls to a few kids and tried to make conversation but they were not liking the new guy. hahaha
When all the kids were accounted for, the 4 of us were properly introduced and we went out to run around a bit while waiting for the people to set up the orienteering course. Out on the field, I managed to talk to a few kids and they actually responded. HUZZAH! heh
After a few round of "Ice and Water" (Different name here), we headed back inside in pairs and this kid, Flinn, comes up to me and chose me. Was a cute moment, was all like "I want you to be my partner!" Had a little chat with him on the way in and then they sat down to wait for the orienteering to start.



While waiting, we played a game to see if the kids could guess the leaders' favourite food. When it came to me, they were all like "RICE!" "SUSHI!" "NOODLES!" "JAPANESE FOOD!" "VIETNAMESE FOOD!"
In my mind I was going.. Seriously?! SERIOUSLY?! But of course we had to play nice so I just went "hahah.. no etc"
I thought I would keep it simple and chose "Chocolate" but no one got it. Which was weird seeing as it came out so many times for the other leaders. Darn stereotyping!

Anyway, we started with the first activity and the younger kids were sent off to make a paper compass while the older kids stayed with Alyssa, Emma and I. There was a giant compass made in the hall with cones that signify a point on the compass and the kids had to run to that point when one of us yelled it out. The first time round it was alright but then we had to play it again a second time while waiting for the younger kids and you can tell they were bored.

We had to repeat the whole game with the younger kids who came in from their other session. Only this time the 4 of us newbies had to run it ourselves as Emma had to go off somewhere. It wasn't too bad except for this kid...

Jesse (He had a pretty cool hairstyle for a freaking 5 year old). The kid with the brother (Cody) who unfortunately had Asperger's. He actually made me chase him around the entire hall while he runs off with the cones. This kid can run. Caught him eventually with him squirming all over the place and Jarrod put him in the naughty corner where he actually just sat there. No running around. Of course, Jarrod did threaten him by saying he would call Jon over (Who is really good at dealing with this kid)
I was talking with Jarrod about Jesse at the end of the day and because we might see him another 2 more times next week, we are going to try to "drill" some discipline/sense into him. hahahaha

Anyway, the session went alright and we only had to do it once because the older kids came back quite quickly since they were only looking at how to use a compass. Right after that they were split into groups and sent off to find clues hidden around the community centre. UTTER. CHAOS.
If someone were to walk in at that time, they would be so freaked out by the kids running all over the place. We leaders had to make sure they weren't going into places out of bounds or being silly so there was a bit of movement involved for us too. Jesse and his brother came up with a bit of mischief by ripping a sign or two out but we were there to save the day! (SO LAME!)

Ahem... The hunt was quickly finished and we moved on to snack/free time while the kids just played random stuff. Went to a few different kids and spoke to them about the last activity and then moved on to the science experiments. There were 5 different ones:
Optical illusion- Looking at different optical illusions and talking about it

Tea Rocket and Expanding toothpicks- Not sure about this but it resulted in the column of paper with the tea leaves burning down to nothing then rises to the top and the toothpicks were bent in a way that made it expand to look like a star when water was added.

Slime- Making slime with PVA glue and stuff

Sealed bag (or something like that)- Fill a zip lock bag with water and see how many skewers you can poke through without water dripping out from the holes

Some water+spring thing- Not sure with this but the thing bounces up cause of the spring.

I got stuck with the boring optical illusions. It was hard getting the kids to focus on what was in the optical illusions. So just did a quick 5 minute session with them and let them trace/draw/create their own optical illusion. Wasn't very science-y in my opinion but it was over quite quickly. They were rotating in groups so we didn't have to worry about too many kids at once. We then moved back to the hall to wait for lunch to be served.
Jesse fell over at around this time and was sorta just being sad and depressed by himself in a corner so I went over to ask him what happened and apparently someone pushed him down by accident. You can tell he wasn't feeling happy or particularly good because he was quiet and actually wanted a hug from someone. It was weird to see a kid like him get so down like that. Lunch was served and he was well on his feet again and ran towards the line. That kid. hahaha

We had lunch (Hot dogs!) and then just sorta sat around for a bit. Talked to a few more kids with some bumping into things and hurting themselves. Played "I Spy" with Olsen before getting called to assemble for the last activity.
The last activity is "Crafty Afternoon" where they basically just make heaps of stuff. As you all may know, I am not flash with my art skills so this afternoon was like LOLWHAT?! for me. I tried nonetheless :P

They split into three groups where 1 large group went to do "Enviro-blocks" which was making stuff with those stuffings you find in packaging but coloured. It was made of corn starch apparently. Pretty interesting. I got asked to help run it with Alyssa (She is a Graphics Uni student). Found myself helping this kid who had hearing difficulties, Bailey. He was a great guy. He cut himself with the plastic knife (Which was surprisingly sharp) and did not complain one bit. Just put a bandaid on and moved on. I helped him cut everything else after that though. No more knife for him!
Jesse was working on the same table as well and he was actually behaving like an angel. Apparently he really loved Arts and Craft so he was really into it. His brother however was not that engaged so instead of letting him disrupt everyone, Lindy set him in her office and let him play with her iPhone.
I was pretty much helping with Bailey's table while Alyssa managed 3 other tables. To be fair, it was her strong point and majority of the kids in the room didn't need help.

After a bit, the kids who did Enviro-blocks were allowed to go do Arts and Craft or make a heat pack. While the other two group went into Enviro-Blocks. Tim came to help Alyssa so I moved on to the Arts and Craft room. Helped Bailey again along with a few other kids. It's surprising how much I could help out with even though I suck in the Arts department. Heh
A kid, Keira, made one of these for each of the leaders which I think was really sweet. :D

After a while, I just started wandering from room to room to see how things were. The kids were basically just moving about from room to room as well so it was alright. Folded stars during my "patrol" and gave it to kids who passed by. hahaha

The kids then gathered in the Main Hall while we just cleaned the rooms up and organised things. Parents came to pick up their child and that was that. I think I made some new friends today! WOOOO :D

All in all, a wonderful experience. Do not regret volunteering for this at all and looking forward to my other one more, possibly two, volunteer day(s) next week.
A day well spent indeed.
Thanks for reading! hahaha

Till the next post. Cya!