1. Creative Children Activities of March
At the YMCA before- and afterschool program at Fayetteville Elementary School,
we know how to have fun. With approximately 50 children per session, it is
important to assist the children in finding creative ways to express themselves in
an engaging manner. For the month of March, for example, staff led the children
in a St. Patrick’s Day activity where the children celebrated Irish heritage by
drawing St Patrick’s Day themes on various colors of paper. In another activity,
the children used a rainbow of colors to celebrate diversity. The children used
varied colors of jelly beans to paste to a paper diagram of a person. Staff
explained to the children that the jelly beans represented differences in each
person and that the diagram represented the commonalities of feelings among
human beings.
In an additional March activity, children engaged in the creation of stress balls.
Children processed with staff frustrations that arise in school life, and each child
made his own stress ball, using rice and balloons, to assist in coping with these
frustrations. The children are allowed to appropriately use these balls during the
YMCA program.
To represent the fun activities we do at Fayetteville, staff post pictures of the
children and their crafts on a bulletin board in the school hallway. The children
and staff are proud of the children’s creations, and we are very thankful to
Fayetteville Elementary School for providing the YMCA a board on which to
publicize the talents of the children.