Personal Space Camp and Superflex Game

Man on man this has been a crazy semester! I can't believe how fast the time is going. I know I haven't posted about a new recipe for a while but I sadly haven't been making too many new things. I have been making things I know how to make because by the time I get home I am too tired or in a hurry to do something new.

But I have been doing some awesome things at my practicum site! I have made a lesson plan for a second grade guidance lesson on personal space. It is actually two lessons because there is just so much you can do! My supervisor gave me the book Personal Space Camp to use with the class.  The plan is to read the book and then do a few activities with it.  One of the activities is a coloring sheet that I made myself and am very proud of.  I am also having the students role play ways to have personal space and ways to not have personal space. They are also going to be making space suits out of boxes and paper bags! That is part of why it is taking so long because I want to give them time to decorate their space suits. We are also going to talk about what to do if someone is in your personal space. If you are interested in my lesson plans let me know and I will gladly share.

I am also going to be doing a group for second grade boys on social skills. My supervisor had bought the Superflex Curriculum a few years ago and had not really liked it.  She had offered it to a practicum student a few years ago who was able to pick and choose a few things to use.  She also offered me the program to use. It is not really great for a school setting because it is 12 sessions that are kind of long. I will only get to work with my group for maybe 20 minutes at a time.  So I too just picked some things I thought I could use with the time I have. I also wanted to plan an activity that would keep them entertained and really engaged in what they are learning. So this weekend I made a board game! I based it around the Superflex characters and used strategies that they came up with. They have to roll the dice to see how far to move but in order to stay there they have to answer a card correctly. Here are a few pictures of the game.

* FYI- If you look at my board game it is a rather long game board. Because I only had my group (4 students in the group) for about 30 min we didn't come close to getting through the whole board. You might want to make it smaller or have a way to remember who is at what spot to pick the game back up next time. This worked great with my boys and this was the most engaged groups session I had with them. They also kept asking when they would get to play again!

Each card either has a "Unthinkable" character on it or a strategy. If it has an Unthinkable then they student has to name a strategy to defeat that Unthinkable. If it is a strategy card they have to name the Unthinkable they could use it against. 

This is the back side of the cards. 

My game board.

I printed out 6 Superflex pictures and glued them on different color paper to be our pieces. 

Cake Pops

I decided for the ECU vs. SCU game that I would make ECU cake pops. This was an away game for us so I knew we would at least have some down time at the hotel and would want something to munch on. I made a them out of lemon cake with purple white chocolate on the outside :)

Ingredients:

My finished product!

- 1 box cake mix (use any flavor you want)
- Things you need to make the cake according to the box
- 1 container of frosting that goes with the cake
- 3ish bags of candy melt (you can get it at craft stores. I used 2 bags of purple and not even half a bag of yellow for decoration.)
- candy sticks if you want

Directions:
1. Bake the cake in a 13x9 pan according to the box and let cool.
2. Crumble the cake and mix with all the frosting.
3. Form in to 1 or 2 bite size balls (Mine were way to big haha). Place on a cookie sheet with wax paper and put in the freezer about 10 or so minutes until not squishy.
4. Melt candy according to directions on package. Dip the balls in the candy and let cool.
5. Decorate as desired. Keep in fridge.

*There are several suggests on line on how best to dip and then dry the cake balls. I still have not mastered that part yet.

This was our view at the South Carolina game. I didn't take any more pictures because we lost so badly :-/ They did have a really awesome atmosphere. It was hard not to get pumped during their pre-game show! 

My first 5k!

Ok so I have needed to do this post for several weeks now. Can I just say this has been the craziest, busiest, and most stressful semester I have had in grad school. I think it is because I am taking my comprehensive exam and the National Counselors Exam (NCE). And my practicum class is really front loaded. So I think once I can get through October I will be ok.

So back to my first 5K. I ran in the MacNair Farms first annual 5K. My brother in law Jeff is actually the one who put it together has a fund raiser for the Athens Drive track team. (he is the head coach.) The race was an awesome trail run through the MacNair farms property. Parts of the race were in open fields, through the woods, along small farm roads. It was pretty cool. I really enjoyed the run. I ran the race in 38:36 which my Jeff said was really good for my first race. My friend Noah also ran the race. He got second in his age group! If you want to run a race let me know!!!I need to find another race to run so I don't loose motivation.

My Momma and I before the race!

Coming into the finish! I didn't feel like I was going to die so that is good!