Week 2 in the books

Greetings, it’s your boy Damani and I'm back again with another blog! This weeks blog is something a little different because I was at Blacks Creek in Quincy, MA which is not far from Wollaston beach.  We are working with kids from ages 6-10. We play games to learn each other's names and some things about everyone. After we do the introductory games we play active games like kickball, tag, gaga ball and etc… my favorite game we have played so far is gaga ball. The game gets so intense. The point of the game is to hit the person’s leg with the ball, but below the knee and you can only use your hands. Che, another staff member, and I often go back and forth trying to get each other out. 

The kids and I playing Gaga ball

After we play about 6 rounds of Gaga Ball, we go check the crab trap and every time I pull it out of the water the kids faces all light up and they get so happy and amazed by what the crabs look like. I take it out and pour the crabs into the bucket so that we can teach the kids how to tell the difference between male and female crabs, or when the female is pregnant. After collecting the crabs, we get the nets and we take the kids to see what they can catch with them. We’ve caught shrimp, more crabs, a lot of minnows, and we caught two horseshoe crabs. For the last ten minutes of the sessions, we play another game like "Everyone’s It" or "Evil Scientist". Watching the kids play "Everyone’s It" is really funny to watch because they don’t even focus on tagging each other they just play rock, paper, scissors, shoot or just run around just to run. 

Watching the kids and making sure they hold crabs correctly!

Teaching kids about the green crabs caught in our trap! 

     When we’re done at Black's Creek for the day, we are assigned to another spot. We went to the Children's Museum and helped the group over there. At the Boston Children Museum, we taught the kids how to fish and taught them about the crabs that we caught. While the kids were waiting to fish, they were able to draw on the walkway with chalk, use the touch tank, or we talk to the kids and make jokes. The kids get so excited when they bring their fishing lines up and they have caught something. They say "Ooooo". Sometimes when you think you caught something, it might be nothing because if you bring it up too fast the fish or crab falls off. We tell the kids that patience is key while fishing and they become much more patient and gain an understanding of the process of fishing.

Adios amigos,
Damani