Bumblebee Friendship Books

I am sure I can speak for everyone when I say, "There have been times in our lives when we have been down and hearing something positive about ourselves from a friend has lifted our spirits."

Children are no different. They need to be uplifted and encouraged just as much, if not more, than adults do. As a class we decided to make "Friendship Books" for each child in the classroom. Each child thought of something nice about each one of their classmates. We wrote it down, and they drew a picture.

About two weeks into the project, Lilly came to me and asked, "What are you and Ms. Mali going to do when you get sad? Maybe we should make books for you too!" So each child made a page for us as well. That's 15 pages for each child! It took over a month to complete and compile everything but we finally have finished "Friendship Books" for all of the Bumblebees to take home and treasure.

My favorite part was seeing the children's faces light up when they heard the nice things their friends said about them. Our hope is that these books will always bring those smiles to their faces.
 - Diana Koppa, Bumblebee Teacher

The Bumblebees pictured with a favorite page of their "Friendship Book."

Pumpkin-less Jack-O-Lanterns!

These Jack-O-Lanterns are require no knives, no seeds and no candle flames, making them an easy minimal mess craft, safe for inside, outside and all ages.

Brought to you by St. Ann Center's Afterschool Group.

Items You'll Need:

• One Empty Milk Carton for Each Pumpkin
• Orange Tempera Paint 
• Black Paper
• Scissors
• Tape or Glue

Step 1 - Pour paint into the milk carton, and shake until paint completely covers the inside.

This part is a lot of the fun for the kids. Encourage them to shake the carton as hard as they can and watch them laugh and make funny faces. Make sure the cap on tight! You may have to add a little more paint or pour out the extra when the carton is completely covered.

Step 2 and 3 - Draw shapes for a Jack-O-Lantern Face, cut them out & stick or glue the to the "Pumpkin".

Leave the cap off the milk carton and set it to the side while the kids draw their face. Use a white crayon on the black paper to draw the outline of the shapes. The Afterschool group got really creative and made shapes like bows for the top of the pumpkin and glasses in addition to the normal facial features. There is room for endless creativity! The Afterschool group put glue in bowls and used paintbrushes to apply it to the paper but you can use tape for a cleaner short cut.

Final Step - Admire Your Jack-O-Lantern!

While you can't put an actual candle in the these because the plastic would melt, they are fun and easy craft to recycle some old milk cartons.

If you do this craft, take a picture and share it with us on Facebook so we can see what you create. 

Need more ideas? Try using green paint to make a Frankenstein, like some of the Afterschool Group. Or black paint could make a black cat face! Check out more fun family Halloween crafts here>

Comment with your favorite Halloween crafts!

Generations United Program of Distinction

St. Ann Center for Intergenerational Care has been renewed as a Generations United Program of Distinction! We feel very blessed to receive this honor for another year.

Generations United describes this designation as:

Generations United annually recognizes outstanding intergenerational programs with the Program of Distinction designation. This designation developed and launched in 2010 with support from the New York Life Foundation, serves as the U.S. benchmark for intergenerational programs and is based on the criteria that underpin the effectiveness of any intergenerational program. The intention of the designation is to recognize excellence while celebrating the rich diversity among intergenerational programs.

 Click here to read more about this honor on Generations United site>

A special thank you to our staff, volunteers, clients, youth and all who offer support because the people in St. Ann Center for Intergenerational Care's community are what make it such a special place.

"The Fox" Parody by St. Ann Center

Have you seen the "The Fox" by Ylvis? It is a hilarious song asking "What sound does a Fox make?" The song got millions of views on youtube. You can watch it by clicking here>

Kids in St. Ann Center's Childcare enjoy dancing to the song so much that we decided to make our own version. Kids singing about animal sounds? Perfect for a fun project that all the classes could be involved in.

We spent two weeks taking video and laughing, while listening to the song on repeat. Lily, Miette and Teagan sang the lyrics to the verses and the After School group joined in for a lot of the dancing. The Firefly class had the part of the animal noises and danced to the song as well. The bumblebee added the last lines of the video and more great dance moves. A big "Thank You!" to everyone in and all who helped with the video! The whole project was amazing and had so much fun!!

Here is our feature presentation!!



Just for fun we created a behind the scenes, "Making of the Fox" Video. Check it for cute clips that didn't make the final cut!

Katie's Story

Thank you for spending
the summer with us Katie!

Meet Katie, who volunteered at St. Ann Center for 8 weeks as part of her Summer Service Learning Program. 

During her time here, she was able to help in all of the adult and child care units in ways ranging from leading activities to doing puzzles with the clients. At the end of her program, Katie wrote an essay describing her experiences and sharing her reflections on her time spent at St. Ann Center. We'd like to share some of her thoughts with you. 

I wish I could better capture in words what my experience at St. Ann Center meant to me, but I have done my best. Thank you for the part that you played in that experience and to all the beautiful people at St. Ann Center who touched my life this summer! - to Delma, Our Volunteer Coordinator 

But before I could dwell too long on my fears, Thomas, a middle aged man with a mental disability, came right up to me, grasped my hand in a intimate two-handed hand shake, introduced himself, and with a heartfelt squeeze and the most genuine smile said, 'You have a great day now, Katie.' - Katie's First Day 

... I realized that my listed strengths and talents were much less important than one ability I shared with all human beings: the ability to love and be loved. 

... I decided to dedicate my eight weeks of service to loving the people of St. Ann Center and showing them that no matter what society tells them, they are infinitely valuable as children of God. Little did I know that I would not be teaching this lesson ... so much as learning it from them. 

All my life I have received awards and accolades for my intelligence, athleticism or artistic ability, but never in my life have I felt as valuable as at St. Ann Center, where I was loved and valued for doing nothing other than being me.  

Entering into a Darla's pain was difficult and uncomfortable, but if I were to go back in time and have to choose between a puzzle with Emily and that conversation with Darla, I would again displace myself from my comfort zone and spend that time with Darla. - After Darla cried while sharing about her accident 

I learned that one should never underestimate someone's abilities based on his or her disability. Emily demonstrated this to me as she put together puzzles with no eyesight by feeling the edges of the pieces with her fingertips . . . 

I also learned that disabilities are not always entirely negative misfortunes, and that dependence is not a bad thing, for it brings us closer together as we live in solidarity and help one another.  

I thought that I never wanted to play another game of Crazy Eights  after playing it for an entire afternoon, until I realized that it wasn't about the game itself, but about the people with whom I was playing it.  

It taught me that what is comfortable is not always preferable, as some of my most fulfilling encounters happened because I stepped out of my comfort zone. 

This has inspired me to live each day to the fullest. Working at St. Ann Center this summer has revealed to me that whatever profession I choose, I want to be serving people directly and forming personal relationships with them.  

A huge thank you to Katie for sharing her essay, her personal experiences with us. It honestly touches our hearts to know how much the summer impacted her. We look forward to having Katie back to visit soon! We hope others can relate to her experience and are inspired by her story.

Bumblebee Class discovers Discovery World!

The Bumblebee's theme for July is "Under the Sea." Each day, they are focusing on something new and exciting from the coral reefs to the many different animals that live in the ocean.

Wednesday, the group traveled to Discovery World to visit the aquarium and see many of the things they had been learning about. The aquarium area had so many things to do but the first challenge for the kids was to overcome the fear of walking over the glass floor. They were afraid they would fall through because the they could see the fish directly below! Diana, a Bumblebee teacher, had to show the class how strong the glass was by jumping on it. Being reassured, the kids even sat on the glass to observe the fish.

The group had studied jellyfish the day prior to the trip, so the kids were very excited to watch them swim and pointed out the tentacles when they reached the jellyfish tank. At one point while walking through a tunnel in the aquarium Makayla exclaimed,

"It feels like we are swimming with the fishies!"

Diana feels that Bumblebee's favorite part of the aquarium visit was the area where they actually could touch sting rays and sturgeon! She laughed hearing Maya, with a huge smile on her face while petting a sting ray, comment,

"It's so squishy!" 

The class also spent some time on a replica of a giant boat and of course, got their group picture in from of the fish tank.






















After lunch there was time to venture over to the technology side of Discovery World. Each kid enjoyed having their picture taken sitting in a bubble chair. On the way out they were fascinated by a bed of nails. 5 of the 10 kids were brave enough to try it out! Everyone was very proud of them because they did so well. Jackson stated,

"It felt like the nails were going to pinch me, but it didn't hurt."

Seamus added,

"It tickled!"

Through the entire trip, the Bumblebee class was very well behaved and have a great adventure. When asked what their favorite part was, the unanimous answer was,

"The Fishies!" 

Help St. Ann Center Reach Oprah!

It has been one week since the launch of our online campaign to reach Oprah with the story of our northside project. We've shared our video on Facebook & Twitter,  as well as posted the story on our new North Side Blog. To date, we have 301 views!




There are still many ways you can help. 

 1. Keep sharing and talking about the video! More views means a better chance of Oprah seeing it.
 2. Add this image as your cover photo on Facebook to show your support.