Read–With-Me At HGS

Location: House Of The Good Shepherd

Date: Tuesday, October 08, 2013; 6:30-7:45 pm

On my way to HGS I passed a building and through the window I saw a couple of kitties lazing around as they are prone to do.  I stopped to take a closer look and seeing me, they both perked up and I could swear that they started showing off for my benefit.  This included different poses, expressions and tricks that would make seasoned performers proud.  In any case, I had to keep moving and arrived at the HGS to see that the volunteers were assembled in the lobby, including our Volunteer Leader Jocelyn.  Also present was Galen, a regular over here, and we discussed some of Chicago Cares’ children’s projects.  The younger kids came in and all of them threw themselves at Galen as soon as they saw her.  Holding her hands, the younger kids and other volunteers left for their program. She is by far the most popular person that I have seen at any of the Chicago Cares projects.  Hey, at least I had impressed the kitties!

Our choice of books

Jocelyn led us down to the  reading area for the older kids and I noticed that Marc was present along with 5 other volunteers.  The kids came in and all but two of them were girls. But those two boys were extremely active and what they lacked in numbers, they made up in energy.  For our icebreaker, we stood in circle and Jocelyn said that we should introduce ourselves and state either what our favorite thing was about Fall, or what we would be dressing up as for Halloween. The kids mentioned everything from their favorite thing to eat, to what they liked to do.  But the most fun they had was talking about their Halloween Costumes, which ranged from Vampires to Ghosts.  One of the boys was standing next to me and he said that he was going to dress up as the ‘Incredible Hulk’.  Next it was my turn and I looked at this boy and said that since he was going to be in costume, I would dress up as him so that nobody would recognize us.  Perhaps it was because of this, but he seemed to take a liking to me and so picked me to be his partner for the evening.  Woohoo!  I finally had a fan.

We liked this one

We selected two books, ‘Bear On A Bike’ and ‘5 True Dog Stories’.  He started with the Bear book and liked the fact that the prose rhymed, as the bear traveled to various places and utilizing all sorts of transportation, including a hot air balloon. We soon started predicting where the Bear was gong to go next, as well as trying to spot some of the things in the pictures. It was clear that he was enjoying this game as well as our improvisation of the story.  But even with this playing, he was quite diligent in his reading and was making a complete effort with the book.  Next we moved to the Dog Stories book and selected a story, ‘Dog As A Thief’.  The name of the dog was ‘Grip’ and his owner was a guy called ‘Gerrard’.  The kid had trouble with the name, but to his credit he stuck with it.  Next we started a story called, ‘Dog As A Detective’, where the dog was called ‘Dox’ and the owner was ‘Giovanni Mernoni’’.  I pronounced the owners name in Italian, something that the kid found extremely amusing.  Once again, he was having difficulty in pronouncing it, but persisted nevertheless – a quality which I found extremely encouraging.

Looks like we both had something in common

I asked what grade he was in and he said 3^rd.  I asked about his favorite subjects at school and he said that it was Math and Geography.   I asked if he could name all the states and he said yes.  So for the remainder of the reading session we played a game where I would quiz him on various states on the map and he managed to answer a few.  I told him about a game I used to play in school where me and my classmates would look over a map and one of us would pick a place on it.  The rest had to ask questions and identify which place had been selected within 5 guesses.  I believe that my love of maps was developed during those days of playing this game, discovering new places and wanting to travel there. 

Next we were all going to play a ‘Halloween Bingo’ game, where we each got a 4x4 card with Halloween themed pictures like a Mummy, a Witch, a Ghost, or something similar.  One of the older girls joined Jocelyn to call the game and some of the clues were phrases like “Anything with two eyes”, at which the kid and I would cover everything on our card that had eyes.  The rule was that you could win only once and a girl on my other side won twice.  She could have given her second prize to anyone, but she chose my kid.  Well, he was cute after all and by all means a nice boy.  Then he won and since he already had a prize, chose the other boy to get the prize. With all the girls in there, he picked his buddy.  I guess boys will be boys. 

Soon all the kids had a prize and so it was time to wrap-up.  Jocelyn asked all the kids to come and pick another prize, and my kid picked florescent green glowing fingers, which would be perfect with his Hulk costume.  Then each child got to pick two pieces of candy and my kid got to pick two additional ones for his little sister who was sick.  Armed with all of his presents and candy he prepared to leave.  And he didn't have to travel far since this is after all a shelter and he lived upstairs with his mom and sister.  Looking at his attitude and enthusiasm you would not have known that he was escaping a domestic violence situation.  I gave him a  high-five as they left, for it had been the best Read-With-Me session to date.