We had another wonderful night tonight. Anne invited us all over to her house for pizza, brownies & a fun night of reading our books. Anne was a wonderful hostess! We all want to thank Anne & her parents for everything they did to make our night enjoyable. Our time together was limited this evening, so we did not have video/discussion portion of our class, but the group did update Anne on all the fun things we have talked about recently. Our next class will be held on July 7th and we will be back to our normal routine then. Have a happy & safe 4th of July!

We had a wonderful night tonight full of lots of learning and good times. Last week we learned how important it was to respect our friends' and families' relationships with others, so we started off our class tonight reviewing that and sharing our answers to our homework. Everyone had great examples of how they respect others and their relationships with other people.

We had two lessons tonight: Not making fun of others & Introducing ourselves. The "making fun" video was very funny, but it taught us a lot. Through our discussions, we learned:
• It can be difficult to know if we teasing someone in a friendly or unkind way. The only way we can tell the difference is to watch what the other person is doing.
o Are they laughing along with us and playfully teasing us in return?
o Or are they looking hurt and unhappy or telling us to stop?
o If it is unkind teasing, it is important for us to Stop, Listen, Apologize & Be Kind!
• Part of being friends with someone is knowing what that person will or will not like to be teased about.
• A way that we can find out areas that our friends may be ok to be teased about is to listen to ways that they tease themselves. If they can laugh at themselves then it must be ok for us to tease them in a kind way.

We did a fun, but interesting activity where we all had to draw a picture of one of our "hot buttons" (something that we get upset about when people make fun of us about it). We learned a lot about each other through this activity.

Our other lesson was on how important it is to introduce ourselves to others. We learned the following:
• It’s normal to feel afraid about introducing yourself to someone you don’t know, but it is important to still give it a try.
• If no one ever took that first step to introduce each other, would we ever meet new people?
• You can easily find reasons to not do something, but only by looking for reasons to say yes will give yourself an opportunity to meet new people.

We rounded up the night by reading some more of our book. Here are some comments from the participants:

Erin- I have leaded to not make fun of people or they hurt they fills or make them cry we take a about famous People today to it was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo fun in class today we smile a lot today it was a lot of fun to have class Chana read her book they Emily read her story today they Kristen was a good teacher to help us with are fills and we wash 2 moves about are class it was a lot of fun take about are fills like went hurts you and fills.

Bryce – I went to New York and me and my brother’s classmates and we hung out inside of New York City and ate supper with them. I saw them at different places in New York. They are from a different state. I introduced myself to them. I shook their hands. We are reading my book Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Remember that we have class this Tuesday. I cannot wait for us all to get back together & to find out how everyone's June is going so far. I also hope that Anne is able to join us this week! This week is Emily's choice for where we are going to eat. She wants to have supper at Dairy Queen - great choice, especially since it will be so hot! Hope to see you all on Tuesday night.

Tonight, we all missed Anne very much. We were going to try to go up to the hospital to visit her during our reading time, but she still wasn’t up to all of us visiting her. We went out to McDonald’s to eat and then spent some time visiting about the clubs that we all learned about last week. There are many clubs that we are interested in and we will continue to talk about this as we go through the next couple of months.

Emily read some of her short story to all of us. It was nice to hear her read something that she has worked very hard on. Chana chose to read some of her anime book to us that she loves. We sure have a lot of fun sharing our creative sides. We finished up the night by watching a video that taught us how important it is to be respectful to our friends and their relationships with others. Here are some of the comments that the participants made about our activities tonight.

Emily: We went to McDonald’s and we had a discussion about boyfriend and girlfriend’s relationships. How we know that we are supposed to be friends, we care for each other and others. In the movie, she wasn’t very nice to her friend. When she was bowling, she was going behind her friends back and she was pulling up her boyfriend’s shirt and was saying what nice biceps and it wasn’t very nice that she was doing it. She said can you give us a minute? And he said I’m going to go get a glass of water. The video was serious.

Chana: We went to McDonald’s. We watched a video about what boyfriends and girlfriends. We talked about clubs and we are going to start a new book after we get done with the next book. The book was called Loved Comes Softly. And we are going to pick the next place to eat and we are taking turns reading books that we have.

We will be meeting again on June 9th. This week will be going out to eat at McDonald's. Please plan on bringing around $6 with you so you can pay for your meal. We will spend some time talking about our people skills and will finish up the night by reading some more of our Indiana Jones book. I'm excited to see you all on Tuesday!

Our last class for the month of May. Boy, this month sure went fast. We received some news today that one of our group members is in the hospital. We wish Anne a quick recovery and hope to have her back in class very soon! We really missed her tonight.

We made some changes to our class based on the feedback from the participants through the evaluation we had last week. We will no longer use tent cards (assigned seating). Everyone understands how important it is for us to mix up our seating arrangemetns a bit, so will try to do that on our own without having anyone assign where we sit. We also completed a survey of what videos we want to watch next. By having the participants pick what we watch, we should see more involved discussion.

Tonight we started the new video series focusing on being People Smart. I chose the first video to watch & then the next several videos will be chosen by the participants. Tonight's lesson was on joining clubs/groups and how it helps us to meet new people. Other things we talked about included:
• In relationships, you get what you give.
• It is easy to find reasons not to do something. But always saying now may mean you miss out on fun and opportunities.
• It is important to be cautious about joining groups that can be unsafe or dangerous.
• If you don’t like one of the meetings, you don’t have to go back.
• You are never the only one who may be nervous or worried when you join a group.

Everyone had an assignment for next time we meet. We should explore a new club or group that we want to join and share this information with everyone at class. We finished up the night by reading some of our new book - Indiana Jones. Here are some comments from participants:

Bryce – My friend Anne got sick and has pneumonia. Tonight it was only me, Emily, Erin, Chana and Kristen. And we went to Subway. I had a $5 sub. We learned some brand new stuff. We will be starting our new book.

Erin – hi how are you we are have fun in are class this time we staring a new tape it is call people smart it is a good time to be with people in clubs like book club, story club, or wine club, and some other clubs it is going to be a lot of fun to be in clubs I now I am have fun in book club I wish Anne was with us I now she is get the help now she is get help from the Dr. from the hospital

For this class, we will be picking up food from Subway and taking it over to the park to eat. If the weather is bad, we will either stay at Subway or come back to our classroom to eat - it will be class choice! Plan an bringing about $5 with you to pay for your meal. We also get to start a new video series called People Smart. I'm very excited about these new videos as it looks like there is some great information for us to learn. It is a night of new things for us as we also get to start our new book. I'm excited to get back together on Tuesday!! Hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day.

Class was a lot of fun tonight. Roland came in to help me by asking everyone some questions about class. Everyone had a chance to provide their feedback on a variety of topics including if their input is valued, if they are notified of activities in advance & what they like most & least about the class. I'll be interested in learning what was all said and using this information to continue to improve the way the class operates.

Since we had this activity tonight, I decided to have the rest of the night be about fun. So, we socialized for awhile and Bryce shared a lot with all of us about his fun trip to New York. Chana also read to us from her anime book that she really enjoys. Erin led everyone in a couple of rounds of hangman. Then we spent the rest of the evening reading our book. We finished the HSM book and will move on to Bryce's pick next week - Indiana Jones.

We have a very fun night scheduled for this week. Remember that you need to bring $4 with you to class if you did not pay for your pizza last week. We will start off the night with a pizza party to celebrate a great year we have had together! Then, we will end the night with reading some more in our book. Remember that Roland will be coming to our class tonight to ask you some questions about your experiences with book club and this class. See you all Tuesday night!

We had a fun night tonight, even though we all missed having Bryce with us. Tonight, we ate at Burger King (Erin's choice) and all tried our hardest to make healthy, low-cost choices for what we ate. I think we did pretty good overall. Then, we spent the rest of the night watching our videos and reading our book. We learned how important it is to be careful to not complain too much at work and to watch that we don't interrupt our coworkers by talking too much. Chana shared some more of the story that she has been working on and we talked a little bit about the evaluation that will be happening next week. Here are some comments from some of the other group members:

Anne: We finish books and start a new book Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. We are having a pizza party. We are going to be doing a review. We talked about what we are going to start next. I want to start learning about social etiquette.

Chana: We went out to eat and we watched some of the videos. We talked about how people complain too much at work. I read some of my story which is about me coming into their world, being with them and helping them find things, fighting monsters. I want to keep going with the book club. I want to change it by doing a movie, like an anime movie. Maybe take turns once a week. I know we cannot read anime books because some people have a hard time with that. I like being in book club because it is fun and we get to be with friends. We get to talk about health stuff and how to be nice to each other in book club.

We meet again next week. Until then, hope everyone does well at Special Olympics this weekend & has a lot of fun!

Remember that we have class again this week. We will meet on Tuesday, May 12th at 6:00 pm. Erin has chosen to eat at Burger King, so please plan on bringing money with you to pay for your meal. Also remember to bring your $4.00 in cash to class. This money will be used to help pay for pizza that we will be ordering in for May 19th. See everyone then!

We had a lot of fun tonight. Chana chose for us to eat out at Taco Johns to help us celebrate Cinco de Mayo. We watched a video on being a team player and then talked about the importance of helping others at work when it is part of our job. Many of us shared examples of times that we have been frustrated when our coworkers didn't do their part and left it all for us to do. We had a great time role playing different scenarios on being part of a team. We finished up the night by reading a lot of our book.

Everyone that was able to attend tonight had some comments that they wanted to share:

Erin: we did roll play and we did a good job about roll play it was a lot of fun we wash a good tape a about be a team mature to have not be a good team mature it is not good to be a good team mature it is good to be a good to help your job out help people when they are not doing good in they job it is fun to help people with they job it was a lot of fun roll play they were have a good roll play we had so mush fun Emily & Erin wore roll play a offs and Chana & Brays wore do a daycare and Kristen was the boss of the roll play and we had a lot of fun we read are book High School Musical it is a good book to read

Emily: I got to role play with Chana and Erin and Bries and Emily it was fun and Kristen was the boss we wash the move we gont to eat at taco johns taht was fun to we gent we gont to ride in a sever van that was fun to I love my book club I gent a loing with avery bonyd I like book club it is fun and I like Kristen and all my frends to.

Chana: We did role playing and I got to act out how to work as a team. We went out to eat. It was fun. And now we are taking our break and looking at pictures.

Bryce: Last week I was in Special Olympics games. I got 1st on American crawl and I got 2nd on my breaststroke, and I got first on the relay team. Tonight I learned about role models, what people are like when they are not a team member. I’m excited about Special Olympics – I got 2nd on 100 yard dash and 3rd on 200 yard dash. This week I am going to the big apple.

Happy Cinco de Mayo! We are celebrating by going out to supper at Taco John's - Chana's choice. During our time together, we will also be watching another Job Smart video. This video will be about the importance of working together as a team. We will also read some more in our book.

I look forward to seeing all of you on Tuesday night and hope you will be ready to have fun!

Remember that we are not scheduled to meet tonight. We will meet again on May 4th and I will put more information out soon about that meeting. Have a great week!

We had a great time at class tonight. We ate supper at Burger King - Emily's choice. Then, we went over to the library for the rest of our activities. Everyone had 15 minutes to spend some time in the library picking out new books or just looking through all of the options. Then we watched the next Job Smart video on why it is important to not have an attitude at work. We learned how our bad attitudes may have an impact on those we work with and any customers we may have. We ended up the night with reading some more of our book.

I forgot to bring the laptop with me tonight, so the following comments are being transcribed by me from feedback I received from everyone.

Erin - I learned not to be a bully. I learned not to hurt other people's feelings and try to get along with some of my coworkers and not talk behind their backs.

Bryce - We talked about attitude problems and bad attitudes toward customers. I like our book club because I get to see my friends and our book was a movie.

Emily - I liked the movie we watched and I liked how he was polite to her and how he was nice to her. I like book club because of all the people. I like to pick on everybody.

Chana - I like being friends at book club and going out to eat. I like watching our video. It was really fun and cool.

Remember that we do not have class next week, April 28th. We will meet again on May 5th. See everyone then!