Today I met another volunteer at the Baylor Clinic; he's been going there to volunteer every Wednesday for the past two years! He told me a little more about what the Play Group started out as...each day of the week taught a different lesson (hygiene, oral care) and each day was about building the children's confidence, self-esteem, conversational skills, and creativity. They started the morning with an introduction circle where the kids introduced themselves to each other, sang some songs, and did some easy exercises to warm up. They then played some group games centered around that days lesson. The second hour was unstructured and the children could play with any of the toys brought out and were encouraged to be creative in making up their own games. Before they left they cleaned up the area, picked up trash, and helped put all the toys away. He said that things have slowly changed to where the play group is now more just about playing and less about the lessons they were trying to teach.
We talked about how the play group could move back toward what it was initially meant to be, hopefully we can do something more meaningful for the children! And hopefully, administratively, there will be some support to help with this.
Of course the children were out today and they were very creative in building houses using Lego; one of the girls put together a puzzle of the world and we talked about some of the different countries, she also shared that she wants to be a doctor when she grows up; before we ended the group, two of the kids showed off their skills with the hula hoops!
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