This week at Awesome Club, we started off with another great brainstorming session. This time around, we discussed potential activities and games that would fit our "Field Day" theme. Some of the ideas included chain tag, bobbing for apples, relay races, frisbee golf, and 3-legged races. With all of the great ideas generated by the high school students, the party is sure to be a hit! After sharing out our plans, we started an epic game of "Mafia." We had an excellent narrator who craftily recounted the horrors of each night's "murder." In the end, the townspeople emerged victorious, exposing the members of the Mafia and saving the town from the threat of future violence. Awesome Club will not meet for the next two weeks, but we look forward to the next meeting on April 7!

Written by Steph Smith, Edited by Natalie Davis

As today was Saint Patrick's Day, after snack time we started out with Red Light, Green Light in honor of the holiday. The boys thought that was funny, and they were very enthusiastic about the game as always. It is fun to watch them try to come up with sneaky ways to move forward without getting caught. They have found the most success by walking forward slowly directly behind someone else so that their feet are blocked! For the rest of Club, they were captivated by open-ended art time. The results were quite impressive, ranging from a rocket ship to a 3-D castle constructed from a fruit snack wrapper. Such a creative group! 


Written by Sara Schaenzer, Edited by Natalie Davis

This week at Awesome Club, after enjoying our snack and getting caught up on all the exciting things everyone had done in the past week, we started our plans for the end-of-the-year celebration. Thursday's objective was to come up with a theme for the party. After brainstorming in small groups, we brought our best ideas to the whole group. The crowd favorites included themes such as video games, mafia, and even squirrels! However, after a round of voting, we decided on a field day party, complete with relays, games, and other outdoor activities. It will be a fantastic way to celebrate a successful year of Awesome Club. After deciding on our theme, we played a few games; first, a tricky, mind-twisting, table-slapping game, followed by two rounds of "red light, green light" (in which everyone participated!). It was a productive (and fun, of course) day at Awesome Club and we can't wait to see everyone again next week! 

Written by Stephanie Smith; Edited by Natalie Davis

We started out Club today with a review of names since some of the boys did not know all the volunteer's names. Once we got that straighten out, we practiced everyone's name during Red Light, Green Light. The person only had to go back if they were called by the right name! It was a lot of fun and now everyone has all the names figured out. The boys all love to draw so after that, we played a group drawing game where everyone drew for a minute on a picture and then we passed them around the circle. It was fun to see how much our original drawing changed as everyone's ideas were contributed. We have some very talented artists in our group! The game was such a hit that by the time everyone had shared their final product with the group, it was time to leave!

Written by Sara Schaenzer, Edited by Natalie Davis

We had an especially exciting day at Awesome Club this week as we welcomed two new members, a St. Olaf volunteer and a high school student! In order to make the adjustment as fun and easy as possible, we focused on learning names for most of the day (through games, of course!). While eating our snack, we introduced ourselves and something interesting about us. We learned even more about each other while playing the "Fruit Basket Game" and then put our memories to the test in an association game. Every person came up with an alliterative noun that went with their name and the rest of the group did their best to mentally tie the new word to the name. We concluded with a spirited game of "Pictionary", an exciting round of "Red Light, Green Light", and some expert card-playing and tic-tac-toeing. We will see everyone again next week for more fun and games at Awesome Club.

Written by Stephanie Smith, Edited by Natalie Davis

Today at Awesome Club, we started off with snack as usual and caught up with everyone from the previous week. While eating snack, everyone wrote things down to be used in a game of charades/pictionary. The kids then had the choice to either act or draw on the board. We have some pretty good actors and artists at Awesome Club! We then played Red Light, Green Light, which seems to be the new hit!. It was a good opportunity to learn people's names and the kids couldn't help but giggle when they tried not to move when "Red light!" was called.

Written by Natalie Davis

This week at Awesome Club, we spent the first part of the day chatting, catching up, and enjoying some delicious chocolate chip cookies made by one our very own Awesome Club members. Several of the high schoolers were very excited for the career fair day, which was scheduled for Friday, February 25. It was a lot of fun to hear about everyone's dream jobs. (Looks like we're going to have some rock band members and high profile sports coaches in the future!). After chatting, we played some entertaining games, but the crowd favorite was obviously "Heads-up, 7-up." Some of the high schoolers were incredible, both at guessing who put down their thumb and picking people who wouldn't suspect them!

Written by Stephanie Smith, Edited by Natalie Davis

This week at Awesome Club we mixed up our usual routine and started out with game time. We split into two groups for In a Pickle and Apples to Apples. Given the success of Heads-Up Seven-Up last week, we spent some time with that, but everyone is getting too good at it! The boys had no problem guessing who had tapped their thumb. After that we tried a new game called Frogger. In this game everyone sits in a circle. One person in the circle is designated the frog, who secretly sticks out his or her tongue at other people in the circle to "eat" them. A detective in the middle has to try and guess who the frog is. It was a big hit with everyone, and it was impressive to see how secretive some of our frogs were! Before we finished up, we spent some time brainstorming game ideas for next week to make sure that everyone has a say about what we do at Club!

Written by Sara Schaenzer, Edited by Natalie Davis

This week we had a new volunteer join us at the middle school!  It was great to have someone new with fun ideas to mix it up.  We started out by playing "Heads Up, Seven Up."  The kids responded very well to this game and had a great time trying to guess who had tapped on their thumb.  Next we played an old classic, Red Light, Green Light.  It was fun to watch people lose their balance as they tried to stay frozen and to think up rhymes with green light.  Then we played one of their favorite games - Security Guard.  It was amazing that no one fell down from all the spinning the security guard did trying to make sure no one else moved.  We're looking forward to a new adventure next week!

Written by Sara Schaenzer, Edited by Natalie Davis

We reunited again this week at Awesome Club! We spent a good portion of our time getting caught up. A very nice volunteer brought some candy to celebrate Valentine's Day and we had an (admittedly short-lived) conversation about love. We spent the next part of the afternoon engaged in a drawing game, in which each person had a minute to add to the drawing in front of them before it got passed along to their neighbor. As you might expect, there were several drawings that words cannot explain. To end the day, we played a new game that called on everyone's fantastic senses of humor. The group sat in a circle with one person in the middle, who chose a "victim" and did their best to make this person laugh. If they succeeded, the "victim" became the new person in the middle, and the game continued as such. It was obviously a great end to the day because everyone wanted to keep playing! It looks like we will have to continue the game sometime soon at another round of Awesome Club!

Written by Stephanie Smith, Edited by Natalie Davis