4th time the charm at JCC

This is the 4th time I went to the JCC to observe ( I had to do an extra to make up for a class I will be missing). I am finding that it is harder and harder to stay away, I really like these people! In fact, I missed going last week and the students were upset so I got a great welcome this time.
The project this week was making a Seder Plate for Passover (for those who don't know, Passover is a holiday coming up in about 3 weeks. We hold a ceremony/dinner for the first two nights called a Seder. At the Seder, we have symbolic foods which we display on a plate to use for the story telling. Hence, a Seder plate is a popular craft idea for students).

They way we made it was really neat if smelly. Each student was given a paper plate (actually, two together to hold up more) and we mixed up this plaster stuff. It was like paper mache meets fiber glass in texture and was lumpy and gross. We then helped them smear it on the plate and tried to get them to coat it evenly across the surface. Once that was done, we used our fingers to scoop out 6 holes from the plaster, one hole for every symbolic food that they will put on the plate. It should dry and next week they will paint them.

It worked out alright, though most people needed help with getting the surface smooth. And they really couldn't get their minds around getting 6 evenly spaced holes that were bigger than a finger print (although one guy had the cutest idea! He made his holes into a smiley face :) The upside of this was it took relatively little fine motor skills so everyone could participate with a bit of help.

We had 30 minutes left so we took the ceramics they made 2 weeks ago and painted them. I was actually shocked by something that happened. Usually when the students paint something it will all be one color and it will be the color that was put in front of them randomly. Rarely is there a student who will request a color and do more than one. Well there is one gentleman who in the past basically just sat there. When we made the ceramic bowls, his lump of clay remained untouched until someone noticed it at the end. Well his bowl was painted beautifully! He used at least four colors, asking for more. And it wasn't just splattered and gobbed on but very deliberately done. I was shocked and said so, complimenting him on it. Moral of the story: Never decide what a person can or can not do, they might just surprise you.

One nice thing happened, they offered my the lead teaching position for this program for next year. The woman who does it now was promoted to director and she asked if I could do it. I told her I don't know what my plans are for next year yet but if I can I would. Second moral of the story: It is VERY GOOD to make connections now. You never know when it could be beneficial.