This week at BJM, I volunteered in the Arts and Sciences room. I entered the room to the kids playing their own made up version of air hockey with a bunch of blocks and a table. They were giving Mr. Patel quite a hard time so I joined in as a referee and managed to smooth things out. Following a half an hour of this, we all decided to play a board game and one kid chose Battleship. As we were setting up, a very shy kid sat down next to me and I got a sense that he wanted to play. Sure enough, he did but he didn’t know how to play. I carefully explained to him the rules and even demonstrated how to play the game, but I realized that he was too shy to even speak up and say “hit” or “miss.” However, after a while of playing the game he really started to like it. I made sure to make him feel as comfortable as possible and I think it worked because I saw him smile for the first time that day when he sank one of his opponent’s ship. I learned from this day that it is really important to speak up otherwise you can miss out on some really fun moments/opportunities. I’m glad I was able to make that kid feel much more comfortable because he was actually able to play with the other kids instead of just watching them play different games.

This week at BJM, I volunteered in the Arts and Sciences room. I noticed a child that was just sitting on a stool and looking around the room and I immediately went to him and asked him if he wanted to do something. He immediately jumped up and led me to some blocks. I thought we would be building some obstacle course but to my surprise, we simply built an incredibly tall (and unsteady) tower of blocks and all he wanted to do was just knock it over. Following this, we played Connect 4, which I taught him how to play and then we stopped playing once he won. The next game we played was Candy Land, which, ironically, he taught me how to play. This game proved to be incredibly unpredictable and very distressing as a randomly picked card could decide whether we moved forwards or backwards. Many times it happened that when one of us was reaching the end, we were propelled back to the beginning. Nearing the end of the hour, we made one last block tower and he knocked it over. I learned that kids are willing to play with anyone but some are just really shy. By approaching him, I had allowed him to really enjoy the hour with someone. I also really found his approach to building tall towers and then watching them make a loud thud when knocked over quite interesting. I think it shows his commitment and strong work ethic in order to achieve a desired goal.

This week at BJM, I volunteered in the Arts and Sciences room. The child who I spent the hour with was incredibly engaged and interested in playing board games with me. We played several games over the hour, many of them several times. For example, we began with Chutes and Ladders and she won quite speedily. Then, we played Connect 4 and I beat her a few times (it was her first time playing the game). However, she refused to move on to the next game until she won. I was amazed by this competitiveness and was even more shocked when she actually outsmarted me and won, especially considering that she had just learned how to play a few minutes before. The third game was much more academic and involved shaking dice with letters on them and then finding as many words as possible within 3 minutes. We both really enjoyed this because even though I only could find like 6 words, she found nearly 30 her first try. Although I lost to her by a lot by the end of the hour, I was amazed by her intelligence and quick wit. She beat me at a lot of these games and also noticed many words that I would not have noticed had she not pointed them out. She was so happy at beating a “14^th-grader” that she took the paper that highlighted her winnings home to her parents.

During my third week at BJM, I volunteered in the Arts and Sciences room. There were two kids who weren’t really doing anything in particular so I asked them if they would like to sit down at a table and play some board games. Although we did play a couple games, the kids weren’t really in the mood and wanted to just draw and play with crayons. After a few minutes of them just smashing crayons around in a bucket of crayons, one began to write sentences on what he did that day and one drew his favorite foods. I found it surprising how curious the child writing notes was to write everything he did perfectly. For example, he used to write that he ran around in the gym and that he ate pizza. However, if he couldn’t spell a word, he asked me for help and I spelled a bunch of words out for him and also wrote them on a separate sheet of paper so he could copy them. I was intrigued by his desire to learn how to write well and it made me feel great that I was helping him how to write and spell at such an early point in his life.

During my second week at BJM, I was encouraged to shift to the Arts and Sciences room. Here, I joined a few children who were in the middle of making crafts. I was delighted by their creativity as they were making unique figures out of popsicle sticks, a few other different materials, and piecing it all together with hot glue. One thing that really stood out to me was that one of the children was making an outfit for her baby sister. I was surprised by her gratuity, considering that she could have made something for herself or a friend. However, she had carefully planned out what she wanted to make for her baby sister, including a blouse, pants, and to my surprise, a hat and shoes. This showed me that children can be really selfless. In addition, I admired the resilience because it took her quite a few attempts to some items made properly. The entire hour spent on an outfit really highlighted to me how caring kids can be towards their loved ones, even at such an early age.

During my first week at BJM, I was assigned to monitoring and playing along with the children in the gym. Although I quickly realized that it would be implausible to have me race against 5-10-year-old children, I made many observations during my time there. It is generally accepted that children are very energetic, but I really saw this first hand. I was very surprised to see that after their full day of school they were able to yell, scream, and run around the gym for an entire hour. I also was quite surprised with the obstacle course they had concocted, which included climbing up a short wall, running full speed and climbing up another wall, swinging by a rope from one mat to another, and then running full speed to the start line and tagging their next teammate. I thought this worked quite well and showed how competitive, even the youngest of children, can be. The carefree attitude of a child is strangely refreshing and I look forward to getting to know some of these kids and their interests in the coming weeks.