My first week of BJM this semester was a wonderful start to future visits. I had been looking forward to it, as always, but didn’t realize just how much I had missed the commute, the environment, and the kids until I went. It was a much needed break from the stress of school work.
Ms. Stacy greeted me with open arms, expressing her excitement for my return. The feeling of belonging that one gets volunteering at BJM is remarkable. The staff and kids are always welcoming and eager. I was also welcomed warmly by my two favorite ladies from the craft room, Mrs. Sarah and Mrs. Patel, who were anxious to hear about my break and tell me about theirs. There were new kids playing in the craft room that Thursday, I only recognized two. Most of them were playing with blocks but the three little girls sitting next to me were drawing Valentine’s cards, it was Valentine’s Day after all. We must have made about 10 cards, each containing “at least 50 hearts!” as one of the girls put it. The fact that Mrs. Patel had given the girls more markers than they could handle resulted in many multicolor hearts, ranging from all the traditional colors in the Rainbow to every one in between.
The colors quickly became the subject of conversation as the girls (the boys sneakily joined in after a while) began a guessing game. Mrs. Sarah, Mrs. Patel, and I were to guess the kids’ favorite colors, but, of course, they didn’t pick the traditional colors, they were much too bright for that. So we sat there, with three guesses each, trying to figure out the intricate minds of 6-7 year olds.
“Green?” “Blue?” “Purple?” —- “No! Shiny red!”
And that’s how the rest of the hour went, accompanied by a chorus of loud giggles.
As always, my BJM visit revealed something significant about children and the value of devoting time to them. They are capable of doing such grand and clever things simply by having the littlest bit of determination and encouragement. The kids wanted to win the guessing game and make it last as long as possible, so they decided from the beginning to only pick detailed colors since those were not easy to guess. By the end of the game, no one was guessing colors like “yellow,” but more like “sparkly light yellow.” Rather than correcting this strategy (because, let’s be honest, the odds were far from fair), we encouraged the creativity which not only resulted in a very interesting and fun game, but made the kids beam proudly with their success.
All they need is a little encouragement, a little encouragement in their creativity, and they will invent the most stimulating and efficient of things, such as our Rainbow guessing game that simply started with a few hearts.