Last week I spent the whole week looking after kids! Well actually, I was helping out with our church's children's summer programme. It ran from 9-12 each day for a week. We helped out with the programme last year and so the format was similar, except for the theme which was 'Transformers' this year.
The Sunday before the programme started all the helpers stayed behind after church to prepare the church for the programme the next day. A few of us made some robots out of cardboard boxes and tin foil. Grace and I made our first little baby robot! It originally had a Mohawk and abs complete with the nipples, just the way Grace liked it! The others weren't so keen though so the baby robot had it's head shaved and it's stomach sanded down.
We put up a few more pictures, put up the Feel Good wall (for the kids to write compliments about each other), did a bit of piggy-back experimenting before we all went home.
The very next morning we got there and we started off with games. Aonghas and I were in charge of filming and taking photos, so we were taking photos most of the time.
After that was the first time Cleo and I had to lead the children's singing. I was a slightly nervous as we were going to do a new song and I wasn't sure how whether they'd get it. I had to lead children's singing the day before and even though there were only about ten kids, they weren't exactly singing very loud! Well on Monday they weren't too bad! At first though we had to get over the issue of not having any of the song lyrics on powerpoint! While Jenny typed out all the words really fast, it was up to me to keep the children entertained, so I did a few vocal warm-ups with the children, making them make funny noises. Afterwards, because it was James' (one of the helpers) birthday, I got him to come up front and have the kids sing Happy Birthday to him! I originally planned to surprise him after the singing, but it was a good opportunity to do it while we were waiting for the words! As for the actual singing, at least they made noise when they were supposed to for the new song. The best bit was that they remembered the song when we did it the next day!
Aonghas and Hamish presented the first 'object lesson' of the week on Monday, which is where the people presenting get to talk about God with the aid of an object. Hamish and Aonghas used balloons as an aid. Aonghas had practised making balloon animals the night before to get it right! He ended up making a balloon dog in front of the children to explain something about God. Hamish then did the explanation before Aonghas gave the balloon to one of the kids who could answer his question.
After a few stories, it was group time where the children got into groups to answer some questions before morning tea and craft time. Monday's craft activity was making a Popsicle stick person with bits of tea towel as its clothes. For some reason most of the children at my table decided to make half man half girl people! Maybe they were indecisive...
Once all the kids left after midday, us helpers got a chance to have lunch before we had a little meeting to review things. After the meeting a few of us helpers just hung out in the room listening to music and singing along to Cleo playing the guitar. That was when we made a huge discovery - that Jenny hadn't heard of quite a few Western artists! It was then up to us to teach her Western pop music artists such as Michael Buble!
Tuesday was going to turn out to be a Calum day, where I would end up presenting in front of the children quite a few times! After the games in which the children played with a parachute, Cleo and I led singing. We did one verse of the new song we did the day before, and to my surprise a few of the children actually remembered it! We then finished off by singing 'I'm in the Lord's Army', which many of the children who come to our church already knew. They really got into it and sang it so loud! It was great! I tried to do a competition between the helpers and the children to see who could shout out
"YES SIR" the loudest and I have to say the children came out on top!
Not too long after was the object lesson. Stephanie and I did the object lesson, talking about sin with the help of faces that you can look at the right way up and upside down, with one way looking ugly while the other way looking beautiful. I figured that since I talk to the kids every day I'd let Stephanie do most of the talking! I accidentally whacked my teeth into the microphone when Stephanie passed it to me though!
After Tim and Tania, the two who were the main people in charge of the programme, led a few songs of their own, I was back up in front leading a game called 'Shi Bang' which was similar to Rock, Paper, Scissors, except there were three different moves and whoever did the same move as me would be out! I tried to catch out as many children as I could, in as little time as I could, but according to some of the helpers a lot of the children were cheating by changing their action after I had done mine and while I wasn't looking! I eventually whittled them down to five and just gave them each some points.
After story telling, group time and morning tea, it was craft time, which was where the children had to make 'dirty cups'. It was pretty much making a dessert in a cup that was supposed to represent mud and then put a gummy worm on top. Because most of it had been done for them, craft time was quite short and Cleo and I had been asked to lead one more song before the end of the programme for that day. We quickly came up with Making Melodies, this song which makes all the kids do these weird actions for each verse. When I went up there and introduced myself, one boy called out
"You've said that four times already today!"
I was a little anxious because I led this song the previous Sunday and the children weren't really into it. This time though they were really into it! Before one of the verses I'm meant to call out
"B*ms out!"
but I don't really like to use that word, so whenever I got to that word I'd say backsides, until Cleo shouted the word out. After that I just left a gap there and let the children call it out for me! The children were the loudest during the final verse though where they had to stick their tongues out while singing! I don't know why but maybe they just like making heaps of noise!
We spent the afternoon after lunch cutting out cardboard for the following day's craft activity where the children would be making a nativity scene. After cutting out card though, the Chins, Grace, Jenny and us stayed even longer than expected and just mucked around. Grace, Carmen, Jenny and I were sitting at the table by the amp when Grace plugged her iPod into the amp and started playing Lady Gaga really loud! I would've thought we'd be asked to turn it off straight away, but one of the church people just asked us to keep it down a bit! That was cool!
On Wednesday after games, Cleo and I led singing again and we did another song called 'Say to the Lord I Love You' where one of the actions is you have to draw a heart with your finger. I surprised Antonia, one of the helpers by calling her up to help me do the actions! She was really embarrassed! hehehe...but hey, the night before Yan Yan bet that I wouldn't be brave enough to get her to come up in front and help him lead singing, so I thought I'd show her, and I sure did!
There was this boy called Sunni who is really loud and up-front, and he was sitting right in front of me as I was leading the singing. He just stood up while I was showing them how to draw a heart with my finger, and said to me
'Why are you doing it that way? Why not do it this way?'
This wasn't the first time he had interrupted me, and at other times I had responded to him. This time I just completely ignored him and kept going!
Eva and Yan Yan, two of the helpers, did the object lesson using this thing called the 'Sin Block' where they made a block with the word SIN on it disappear.
Aonghas then played a game with the kids called Mr Squirt, where he had 20 seconds to ask a child any question and the child had to give the same answer to every question, no matter what...and with a straight face! For example, if the word they had to say was 'my gorgeous girlfriend' and Aonghas asked 'What did you have for breakfast?', you'd have to answer by saying 'my gorgeous girlfriend' without laughing or smiling. If you did, you'd get to squirt Aonghas, or else he'd get to squirt you.
There was one girl who completely forgot how the game worked and when Aonghas asked
"Who bought your top?" (with the answer being 'my gorgeous boyfriend'), she answered
"My mum!!"
Aonghas was just completely stumped! He had no idea what to do! In the end he just let her squirt her!
For craft-time, the kids had to make their own nativity scene. It was quite a long activity and many of the children didn't get to finish theirs and had to take them home half-completed.
Yan Yan asked me to bring my yearbook to church and so later that afternoon I got to check out her yearbook while she checked out mine! Embarrassingly, she and everyone else who got hold of my yearbook discovered I was Head Boy of my schools and started reading my 'encouraging' blurb!
Later that night at home, Aonghas was going to park the car in the garage, but it wouldn't turn on! Not again! Why are we always plagued with car troubles?! This meant the next day we'd only have the use of one car, and because I had to go to hospital in the afternoon and my mum needed to go out, we'd have a few transportation problems! Fortunately we got the other car working for long enough!
Cleo and I led another new song on Thursday morning, called '1,2,3, Jesus Loves Me'. The only thing was I kept screwing up the words to the song! I even had some of the kids correcting me! That day wasn't as good as some of the other days.
Carmen and Grace presented the object lesson, where they did the 'Chemical Cross'. They got to mix chemicals while explaining how Jesus changes our life...or something like that...We had a bit of an emergency before the programme started that day though, when we didn't have any iodine and needed to go down to the pharmacy to get some more. You'd think I'd step in here, seeing as I study pharmacy! Too bad I can't drive...or can't be trusted to drive! We did get the chemical on time though and they presented it without a glitch!
I played the 'Shi Bang' game with the children again, but this time I changed one of the actions to make it completely different to the others. Think: constipated look! This time it was harder for the children to cheat, and with the other helpers watching very closely, I was able to catch a lot more out this time!
The children had to make this hanger out of Popsicle sticks.
As soon as lunch finished, my dad came to pick me up to go over to Middlemore Hospital for a check-up. Last December not too long before Christmas I experienced some jaw pain for a week. The best the hospital could do was to book an appointment for me in January! By then my pain had gone, but I thought it'd be best that I get checked just in case. The orthodontist felt a few areas and did some checks and was confident there wasn't anything serious, and I was on my way! It was so hot that my dad and I stopped by McDonald's for a milkshake on the way home ;)
Friday was the final day of the children's summer programme. We started off with games, as usual. This time it was tug o' war, boys vs girls. I joined the guys to ensure we well and truly beat the girls, but somehow they managed to overpower us! I was left with sore hands after that!
Aonghas and I led a game before singing, called 'ZONK', where it was boys vs girls. Each team had to take turns answering a question about something to do with the children's summer programme that week, and if they got the answer correct could decide to pick a circle to see if they'd get points or 'Z', which meant NO POINTS. If they got points, they could then decide whether to bank the points and let the other team answer a question, or keep going and risk losing all their points if they got a 'Z'.
The way the boys and girls played was quite different. The boys always wanted to risk it and keep going, while the girls were quite conservative and always wanted to bank their points. The boys obviously lost all their initial points after getting a ZONK, letting the girls jump to a huge lead. However, the girls got a ZONK in a later round and in the end both teams were...tied! Who would've thought! Now the best thing to do in that situation would have been to leave it at a draw, but of course Aonghas and I weren't thinking, and decided to do a tie-breaker. We asked the question
'What did you eat for morning tea yesterday?'
and let Tim, one of the programme organisers to choose a child. He chose a girl, and the girl answered correctly. Aonghas then had a piece of paper in each hand. One piece of paper said ZONK, and the other had points on it. It was up to the girl to choose a hand, and she chose...ZONK! Since I was on the boys team and Aonghas was on the girls' team, I was getting the boys to chant and cheer, and when they found out they had won they got really noisy! I didn't notice but I heard that some of the girls were about to cry! That made me feel really bad! That put extra pressure on me to ensure children's singing went well!
At least some of the children were sad that it was our last singing session! I wanted to make children's singing extra special that morning since it was the last, so we first led with the new song '1,2,3, Jesus Loves Me', with me still screwing up the words AGAIN! We then finished off with 'Making Melodies', and without any advance warning, I got all the helpers to come up in front of the children and sing and do the actions in front of them! I hope they had fun!
Andrew and James did the final object lesson, where they had this 'magic bible' in which the first time they flicked through the book the pages were blank, the second time the pictures had no colour, and the third time the pictures were coloured. A few of the kids were quite amazed at that! There is a secret to it but I cannot reveal it...
Craft time was quite fun. Each group had to make a transformer/robot out of the boxes their group had. Our group made this fierce looking robot with red, sharp teeth. One group made a robot sitting on the ground watching TV, another group made a girl robot carrying a handbag and wearing....an apron? There were a few baby robots and a very tall robot. The parents who were helping with the cooking in the kitchen were asked to pick the best robot, and for some reason they chose the really tall robot! I mean, congratulations and all...but purple group's robot should have won!!!
After group photos, the children's summer programme was over for another year. Us helpers had our own lunch, and got ice-blocks too! I also brought Bob the human embryo model I had made at uni a few years ago to show Grace who was keen to look at it. I also got to check out her yearbook! I think I got to check out Andrew's yearbook the day before and Eva's yearbook the day before that too. It was cool seeing other people's yearbooks!
We had our final meeting before having to tidy up the church. A few played badminton, and eventually they all left and it was just the Chins and us left. We mopped and vacuumed a few floors before finally leaving church ourselves. We all decided though that we should come back to church later that night to have a little informal get-together, just to eat and talk. We invited a few others from our youth group but none of them could make it, so it was just the Chins, Grace and us!
We had some pizza, drinks, dumplings, and Cleo and Aonghas went out to buy some dip for the chips...oh and Lipton Tea. However, one of them put that on the dashboard and it went flying out the window so we didn't get much of the Lipton Tea! It was good hanging out with them that night though, and a good way to end a week of hard work!
A few more highlights/memorable moments during the week:
- A girl called Petra always liked to sit on people's laps, including Grace's! Somehow though she fell off and whacked her head on the ground and started crying. Tsktsk Grace! :P
- Andrew was great with children! He had these little boys sitting on his lap or lying on him, with at least two boys on him at one time!
- There was this one helper who none of us recognised, and I soon discovered she was from another church. I then made it my mission to try talk to her and get to know her better before the end of the week. Success? Well no...the day I finally got to talk to her was on the last day, and all I could get out of her was that she was from the Howick church! Stupidly I asked her which church was better. That's definitely NOT how you start a conversation with someone!
- Some children got hold of the water gun used for the Mr Squirt game on Friday and ended up squirting me all over!
- Daniel, one of the helpers managed to 'wow' us and the children with his card tricks. Apparently he has 16 packs of cards at home!
- I got a few compliments on the Feel Good Wall, such as:
"Calum makes an awesome curry" (OK I admit I wrote that one myself...I can't even make curry...)
"Hamish, Aonghas and Calum are brothers"
"Calum is good at singing" (yay finally a real compliment!)
- I was helping out with the purple group, which had the oldest kids in it. We started off with ten kids, and by Friday we were left with five kids! At morning tea I was able to tell them that they could have two drinks each!
- One of the kids in the group was a brother of one of my high school friends, called Annette. When I saw that his friend's phone was a Nokia N97 (an almost $1000 phone!) and wowed at it, one of the boys exclaimed
"Annettage!!"
At the time I had no idea what they were talking about, and thought maybe they were mocking me, but then they explained that's how Annette reacted when she saw the N97 too! Oooooh right...
