Young Men's Club - 4/29/08

Today was actually a pretty decent day. I've pretty much accepted the fact that things are just going to take time with these kids. It's going to take time for them to settle down. That's not going to change. With that said, it took a good 10 minutes for the boys to calm down. Which is actually less than how long it takes the girls to settle down. I started with some basic drumming warm ups. I figured that the kids had a lot of time off and they needed to practice their technique. The few that were still having trouble listening were placed in a little mini-timeout. Basically, they had to sit there while others got to play. After the warm up, I had them play the drumming piece. It sounded very good. However, there were still a couple of kids that don't quite have it yet. So I broke them up into groups and had them work on it. I told them that the group that was the most cohesive would win a prize. One team was excellent. The second team was pretty good. The third team was god-awful. So after that, I had all of them do the drumming piece one more time. Then I took the kids who were still having a hard time aside and tried to work with them on a more personal level. I had the other kids play tag. Here's the problem: The kids that needed work on their drumming didn't understand that they needed work. They thought they were being punished. (Although a couple of them were) One of them was just pouting throughout the whole thing. Meanwhile, the kids who were playing tag couldn't seem to manage it without somebody falling a crying. So I ended that game and replaced it with the Romeo speech. That, unfortunately, was difficult as well. It as about this time that I was completely fed up with all of them. I told them to gather their belongings and line up. About 5 minutes early. I didn't really care at that point. So club didn't end well today. But the beginning and middle were pretty good. So I got that going for me.