First Lab at St.Mary's = ALOT of fun!!!

I have to say that I was a little nervous before the first lab at St.Mary’s but it turned out to be a great experience! The first thing I noticed when I got to St.Mary’s was how much energy all the kids had! They were so excited to finally have free time to play and move around.  The lab assistants did a really good job getting the younger kids motivated to play the different tag games that they had prepared and it was really helpful to watch them to get a better idea of what was expected of us.  After we observed for a little bit, a few of my classmates and I went outside to play with the pre-k students on the small playground. I immediately noticed how much energy they had and how they could make the simplest things a lot of fun. I played with about five students who would jump off a surface that was about 1 and half feet tall. They would jump and land right in front of me and then high-fived both my hands.  Even if they did not land on their feet every time, they seemed to enjoy the activity very much and probably could have played for hours without getting tired! They used their imagination and pretended to be jumping off a cliff into a lake. After playing outside with the pre-schoolers for a while we went inside to the gym to play with all the kids that were left. Another lab student and I decided to organize a game of knockout with some of the older fifth graders. At first it seemed like they did not want to play with us but as the game got moving, I think they too began having a lot of fun. After this I played with the house and little action figure toys with one young girl named Mary. It was so neat to see her using her imagination to come up with different scenarios that the figures would be put through like a “tornado that might destroy the house!”.  I had a lot of fun and am really looking forward to going back next week!