A couple of weeks ago, we had a special "jornada" (activity lasting an entire day) with our pre-teen groups. We're following a special series put out by the Catholic Church in Santiago focusing on this age group, which treats each kid as a super hero, called by God to change the world. They seemed to have a good time, but we're noticing that our particular group is becoming more and more teen every day. They're oversleeping, not following through on promises and have a hard time making it to mass at...
noon. They often have excuses for missing activities, like they have too much homework, but we have enough experience to know that the simple fact is, sometimes sitting on the couch watching t.v. is much more appealing than walking to the chapel ten minutes away. And then there is the constant "fight factor." Best friends change weekly, as petty quarrels over boys, music tastes or he said that she said that he said become just way too important. Pre-teens are a special breed. We hope to survive until the end of the year.
The two photos above are of a game we like to play. We tie balloons to everyone's ankle and then let them loose to pop or be popped. The last one with an inflated balloon wins. It's a great way to wear them out.
Each kid made a comic strip showing their favorite memories of the group so far.
In this series, the kids are divided into tribes, based on the 12 tribes of Israel. Each tribe has its own symbol, color and personality.
In order to help the kids identify with their tribes, they receive gifts like t-shirts, hats and pins throughout the year. Since we are a very poor parish, we've only got as far as pins. We're hoping to raise some money this year in order to buy t-shirts.
