Tickling the Ivories

With our new keyboard and microphone, we've been trying to encourage the kids to try their hand at making music. One of the youth, Fernandes, has always had an interest in the piano, and in fact has his own keyboard at home that he plays around with.

He's able to play the introduction to the song "I Need a Doctor," and can also play parts of "Dynamite," two songs the kids know very well.

Fernandes is practicing almost every day, and as you can see from the video below, he's getting better and better. It's great to see the progress he's making!

Even Kids Love Kinect!

The Xbox Kinect is designed to be fun for kids of all ages, and though kids between 8-12 are the most "into" the games, we even have some younger kids who enjoy playing.

Last week, while the "older" kids were working on a point-earning project, two young kids, Ariam and Isaiah, took advantage of the free Kinect time and played "Just Dance 3." They had smiles on their faces the entire time, and it was great to see them having a blast!

Above and below: Isaiah and Ariam showing off their "Just Dance" moves.

Music: the First Finished Product

As followers of this blog know, we've been attempting to start a music program here in the new Activity Room at 808. With a new keyboard, a microphone, and Garage Band on our Mac Mini, we've been able to make a number of beats, and even record a song or two.

Recently, one of the harder-working teens who wants to be a music producer when he gets older, put the finishing touches on his first beat. It's something he made on his own, with just a little bit of coaching from an Activity Room instructor.

His music name is "DJ Shock," and with some help from the CLC instructor, we were able to create a logo, and insert that logo and his song into a video that could be posted on YouTube. We put it up on Friday, and it already has 13 "likes" and over 80 views!

We're very proud of how his song came out, and hope that he can continue to make more! The song and video can be seen/listened to below.

808-812 Makes Music!

We recently acquired a keyboard, a microphone, and some high-quality headphones for the Activity Room, enabling us to put our music program into effect.

Using this new equipment and the Mac Mini we've had for a while, we are able to use a program called Garage Band to make a wide variety of music, from rock to rap to techno.

An Activity Room instructor brought his electric guitar from home for the youth to play around with, and, even though they didn't know how to play much, they had a great time messing around and jamming on it.

Later on, we were able to use the keyboard to make a "beat" that a youth wrote a rap for. We then used the microphone to record her rap; after just a couple of hours, we had recorded a 30-second song!

We've had the equipment for about a week, and we've already done a lot with it. We can't wait to see what we come up with in the future!

Above: Zarriah preparing to record her song, a rap she wrote herself.
Below: Doodie showing his brother his guitar skills.

Above: Shahir making some music on the electric guitar.
Below: Sura and Asmaa using the guitar and beat-making program.

Below: Martha, Lena, and Sarah working on some music of their own.

Restarting the Recycling!

In an effort to improve recycling scores across the buildings and to give the kids and teens a chance to "give back," we've restarted the 808-812 Recycles! program.

Activity Room workers are going to be encouraging the kids to recycle, while also having them help sort and collect bottles, cans, and papers. We already have a few bins set up in the Activity Room, and our first recycling afternoon was very successful.

We had over a dozen kids and teens come to help us out, and we hope to get a recycling "crew" started, a designated group that will work on recycling on a weekly basis.

Below are some pictures of our new recycling set up. If you have any recyclables, feel free to drop them off at the Activity Room or Computer Lab, and the recycling crew will take care of them for you!

Above: The kids recycled a bunch of scrap paper and packed it away neatly.
Below: The updated and revamped "recycling corner."

Below: Another view of the "recycling corner."

Before and After: Take a Look!

As I said in the previous post, these have been busy weeks here at 808-812. The biggest news involves the renovation and re-opening of the all-new Activity Room! The kids love the room, and it looks amazing. Take a look at the before and after pictures below, and see how great of a job the maintenance crew did.

Turkey Craft!

Sorry for the lack of updates as of late; it's been a busy few months in the CLC/Activity Room. Hopefully, the updates will be more frequent going forward.
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Before Thanksgiving, we decided to get into the holiday spirit by doing a youth favorite: the turkey craft! All you need to do this craft is some cotton gloves, feathers, cotton stuffing, googly eyes, and craft glue. The pictures, viewable below, show how great the turkeys came out!

Above: The gloves before they were turned into turkeys.
Below: Sirak and his finished bright red turkey.

Above: The kids hard at work on their turkeys.
Below: Doodie preparing to stuff his turkey.

Lena and Sara (above) and Adem (below) show off their finished turkeys.

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