Hello!
I hope everyone is having a great Friday! This Wednesday I got to go on a Cocky's Reading Express trip which was so fun. I reccomend everyone go on one during their time at Carolina, you won't regret it.
We met early Wednesday morning and took the new Cocky's Reading Express bus down to Bamburg, South Carolina. We went into the library where we had an audience of close to 100 people! There were 5 volunteers and Cocky. All 5 of us read a story and talked to the kids about why reading is important in our lives. During the 3rd story Cocky comes out and surprises the audience and helps act out some of the books. He gets the kids involved and pulls them up on stage and protests anything purple and orange. All the kids were so excited to see Cocky and found him hilarious. After all the books were read the kids got to have their pictures made with Cocky and they all got to pick out a free book to take home with them as long as they promised Cocky that they would read every single day. It was such a great experience to be a part of and I think that the kids really liked hearing the stories with Cocky.
After Bamburg we drove a few miles to Blackville which was a super tiny city. We had lunch at an amazing restaraunt called Miller's Bread Basket. Everything was home cooked and delicious and we got to hear some interesting stories from Uncle Ray, who has worked at the restaraunt for a very long time. It doesn't usually happen but Cocky made a surprise visit at this restaraunt and got himself a free meal!
After lunch we did our final presentation at the Blackville Library. It was a much smaller audience but they were very appreciative and you could tell it really meant a lot to the families and kids that we came to them. They were excited to receive their books and take pictures with Cocky.
We lieft Blackville and played Who Wants to be a Millionaire the whole way home. This was such a fun and rewarding experience and I will definitely be going on another trip. I wish I had taken some pictures to show everyone but if you like Cocky's Reading Express on Facebook I'm sure they'll be uploading some very soon.
Outside of Cocky's Reading Express I'm really trying to focus a lot of my energy on the little girl that I am tutroing at St. Lawrence Place. She is 5 and doesn't yet know her alphabet. We only get 30 minutes together twice a week and I'm really struggling to get her to sit down and focus so yesterday I made a trip to the dollar store for some supplies. I've made her a laminated chart with every letter on it. Once she proves to me that she can identify a letter she gets to put a sticker over it. Once she gets five stickers I'm going to let her have a prize that I got at the Dollar Store. I also promised her that if she can complete that whole chart and learn all her letters by the end of July that I will throw a celebratory ice cream party at SLP for her and all of the other children there. To keep her on track I bought a dry erase board and I'm letting her show me which letters she wants to learn and we're taking turns drawing them on the board. Yesterday was the first day that I tried this and she stayed focused the entire 30 minutes! We only got through 4 letters but I was so glad to have her attention the entire time. I'm going to try and come up with fun ways for her to do letters each time such as sensory bags, playdough, etc. I really, really want to get her to know these letters.
Whew, sorry I know that was a crazy long post but I just wanted to give an update on some good little things that have been happening! Can't wait to hear more about everyone elses experiences (:
Madison