Monday, September 24, 2007

Live, Grow, Learn

Keepers At Home

Alexis and I love our Keeper’s Club.  This is our 4th year involved with it.  Last year I became co-leader of the group.  I work along side one of my very good friend.  We enjoy organizing it, and look forward to seeing what talents and gifts these great bunch of moms will bring to the girls each year. 


This year we began with the Plastic Canvas Badge.  The girls enjoyed making picture frames, and then crosses that could be used as magnets or bookmarks.  Our girls ages range from 5-15 and it is very interesting to watch the skills of each age level.


A mom who is new to our group this year took on our next badge – Special Needs.  She did an outstanding job helping the girls to understand the special needs of people – particularly children with Down Syndrome.  This mom has a precious little girl who has DS.  I wish I could have spent more time listening to everything that she was teaching, but I was busy with lots of pizza orders.  However, I did have a chance to hear part of a great conversation that she had with the girls and I was quite impressed at how much the girls were picking up.  This terrific mom spoke about the natural make up of people born with DS and how it affects their bodies and learning abilities.  She also took some time to listen to the girls to find out about family members with special needs.  She read 2 book to them,
Painting the Octopus Red and My Friend Isabella.

One of the exercises that our Keepers mom did was something to help make the girls aware of what it may feel like to paint while blind.  During the first week of working on the badge, she asked the girls to randomly glue yarn to paper.  The next week she blind folded the girls and giving them instructions of where their paints were located, and had them paint the paper feeling the yarn as their guide.  It was quite interesting to see how the different age groups reacted to the challenge of this task.  The older girls were very concerned with getting inside the lines of the yarn, while the younger girls were much more uninhibited and willing to take risks in where they placed their paint.       


I believe our Keepers mom did an amazing job of giving our girls a new awareness of people who need extra TLC.  I feel extremely blessed to be able to see the Lord working through these wonderful moms.    

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