Lindsey- Playworks- Day One

Monday, January 14
Today was our first day working with our organization, Playworks. We began our cold and snowy day in the Denver Playworks office with some of the program coordinators. Naturally, the very first thing we did upon arriving was an active ice-breaker. Playworks is all about getting to know the students on a personal basis. Even though we already knew each other pretty well from the car ride out to Denver, it was still a fun activity that helped us learn more about each other.
After playing our ice-breaker game for about ten minutes, we dived into orientation and guidelines. We learned that in order for schools to be eligible for a Playworks coach, 50% or more of the school’s students must receive free or reduced lunch. Some of the most difficult take-aways to remember were to avoid using the word “guys,” when addressing a group of students, and also not to treat female students differently because of their gender. The second one was important because it gives female students the notion that they are different and they deserve or need extra help completing tasks. Avoiding addressing a group as “guys” was really difficult for us the first few days. Sometimes Playworks coaches will refer to groups as “y’all” or “friends” in order to avoid calling the students, “guys.” I was happy that Playworks has tips and guidelines that address the potential gender inequalities in elementary schools without making it obvious that female students are vastly different than their male counterparts.
When we finished orientation, we played two more games. I thought that the best part about these is that no one ever “gets out” or loses. My favorite of the three games was called “One Fish, Two Fish.” In this game, participants try to gently give other participants a butterfly tag on the shoulder or back. When a participant is tagged, each player they previously tagged is back in the game. In the meantime, the tagged player takes a knee and waits for the person who tagged him or her to be tagged by someone else. In our particular game, we had to move around without bending our knees. Not only was this game as awesome way to get us moving and laughing, but it also required thinking and paying attention.
Eventually we left the Playworks office and went to our first school of the week: College View Elementary. The coach’s name was Tim, and it’s pretty obvious that everyone in our group loved him right away. It may have had something to do with the fact that he greeted us with “Rock Chalk… Ben McLemore, huh?” or the fact that Time is an energized and down to Earth coach. Regardless of our reasons, we didn’t have problems getting to know him throughout the day and later in the week.