There were two boys…

The activity for today consisted of a series of writing prompts. One involved each team of children writing a story about the two characters on our back mural. Here’s team yellow’s response:

Once upon a time a black and white played football, but they didn’t really like each other. Then they started to play football as a team. As then started to get to know each other they became friends. Then one day they went to New York to face the Giants and they became the quarterback and the other caught the ball. The Giants were known to not win a lot of games, but they still tried their best and never gave up. After trying their very best they won the game. That’s the story of two races, black and white.

Annual Report 2010

We’re pulling together the annual report, and are looking for your favorite photos. Especially close-ups.
If you can, please identify who’s in the photo and what was going on.
Please send them  ASAP to bruce@schimmel.com

 

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Many thx, Bruce

Friday at Tree House Books!

Momentum from the limo reward trip is alive and well at Tree House Books. This past Friday we split the kids up into groups and did team-building activities. The group on the Playhouse side put together a book where they each came up with a sentence to create a story, they they illustrated their page. Check it out:

"It started raining when he went back outside so he went back inside because he was wet." -Rasheem

The group of kids on the Bookstore side of Tree House Books participated in a paper-clip game. The kids split into pairs and only using one hand each had to create a paper clip chain. To make it even harder, there could be NO talking. Congrats to Maurice and Radeam for creating the longest chain!

One hand each! Such great teamwork.

Our winners!

10 days till our Limo Reward Trip

Next Wednesday, the children registered in our Life With Books Tutoring Program who have read 10 books will be rewarded with a trip in a limousine to the Kimmel Center! So far, 20 children have accomplished the goal of reading 10 books. Here is some of their art work & writings based on the books they’ve read:

Picture done by Malique, age 8. Based on the book "Magic Tree House #1: Dinosaurs Before Dark"

Picture by Taliah, age 7. Based off of a Clifford book.

Picture by Zahlee, age 8. Based off of "Green Eggs & Ham."

Volunteer Orientation. 2011.

On Monday we had over 40 volunteers take part in our first orientation of 2011. Students from Temple University of different majors and backgrounds learned the mission of Tree House Books & the different ways we can use their help. After an initial meet & greet, filling out paperwork and introducing staff we broke up into groups and met with our teams for tutoring.

Volunteer Coordinator welcoming everyone

Workshop Coordinator, Colwin Bocasan meeting with Magazine Workshop staff

Team Leader Jamie Smolen and the Friday Team

Team Leader Leigh Buzzard & Ms. Jess talking with Team Wednesday

Team Leader Dan MacGuill and Team Tuesday

Team Leader Lauren Macaluso & Team Thursday

All the new volunteers for our Life with Books Tutoring Time program

Our opening ice breaker activity

Thanks to everyone who came out for the orientation & to Ms. Star for the pictures. Stay tuned for posts from our newest volunteers :)

My best friend juggles a Mississippi Zoo

Today at THB, for a Tuesday writing activity, we played with nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.

Kudos to Tee-tee, Malajah, Dominique, Miss Kaitlyn and Miss Mollie for their imagination and quick learning!

Mr. Dan

The week of ‘The House’

On January 4th, all of the Tree House kids came back & an average of 3 volunteers held down the fort. Needless to say, it’s been a bit hectic but everyone is glad to be back together after 2 weeks of vacation. Thanks to Ms. Star we had a special treat for the kids these past two Fridays–a cardboard house! At first we covered it with a few gray curtains & had the kids discuss in groups what the strange, gray blob could be. They guessed everything from a tree house to a vampire. Once we unveiled the house the kids wrote their own stories about it and then got to color it. You can see Mr. Max in the photos maintaining their excitement!

Yesterday, we stepped it up a notch & asked the kids to write a script using the house as a prop. Check out the videos!