After School Club – Nov 6th to 10th
MONDAY 6th November –
Monday’s session was the start of our 5-week movement programme. The young people that were interested in joining the group took part in the first exercise all to do with trust and creating shapes with a partner.
We found the exercises a useful tool to break the ice between the group, some of which had not danced in front of anyone before, and also to see how far their abilities could go in preparation for future sessions.
By the end of the session, we focused on freestyling, the young people particularly enjoyed this. It allowed for their own expression and creativity to follow free.
Before we started the rest of our session we began with our Pit and Peak of our week. This is when the young people go round and all say hello to each other and pick out one low point and a high point of their previous week. It allows for the young people to relate to each other. No matter how different they are, they still have a similar set of experiences.
TUESDAY 7th November –
During ASC on Tuesday we set up for free Play, the activities involved in this include arts and crafts, freestyle dance, table tennis, and board games. This was a very relaxed session where the children could decide what kind of activity they wanted to take part in. They were free to move around the activities, engage with different young people and try new activities.
One small group that stood out were playing a game they came up with on their own with the jenga pieces. They started to create different designs and patterns that they could knock down similar to dominos. They kept challenging themselves to try and more advanced patterns and when they didn’t work they would have to look at why it didn’t work and adjust the route. The young people were really enjoying themselves and asked their parents if they could stay longer at Dragon Hall. We purchased a larger set of multi-coloured Domino’s for them to explore their game further in the coming weeks.
FRIDAY 8th November –
We split the club into four groups, they will be staying in these groups over the coming weeks. Each Friday we have a new fun activity for the groups to compete in, like who am I?, crosswords and suduko. This week in their groups they played Charades.
The activity was a lot of fun, and the young people seem to enjoy the element of competition without letting it overtake the fun factor. We made it possible for them to gain extra points for their team, depending on how well they worked together.
During the games, the young people had to come up with the actions they were doing for their group to guess the film. They had to work together to guess the words that were being acted out, without talking over each other so the correct answer wasn’t missed.
Round Up –
All in all, despite the delicate climate this week with regards to our recent loss, the young people enjoyed their time at Dragon Hall and seem to appreciate the sense of routine that some of our ongoing exercises provide. They also enjoyed their free time, with their friends here.
One quote from a boy this week was ‘no mum, can you wait outside I want to stay here until the end’.