Setting Up

Where to start?

When I heard that were in a class with service learning I was a little skeptical then quickly grew to like the idea. I was worried about the time issue at first, but when broken up into two or three hours a week it doesn't sound nearly as bad. I don't consider myself a very good writer, but doing service work - that I can do. I really like that this class is not just a read this book (that has nothing to with you and you will hate it) and then write a paper on it (that you also don't know or care anything about). So far we have had discussions about things that matter or are interesting.

Also, we got to pick our own places to volunteer at, something that interests us even. CRAZY IDEA! I am an Elementary Education major so when I heard about this project I really hoped that I would be able to work with children. Very luckily, I realized that right down from my dorm is a Children's Learning Center. I went in and introduced myself and the project for class. The people there were very helpful and excited from the beginning. I got contact info and started emailing. They wanted to make sure that what I was helping with was something that I was interested in.

At first I was going to work in one room that focuses on reading projects. The times for that didn't end up working with my schedule. At the moment I am going to start there tomorrow afternoon. I will be working in the two and a half to four year old room.

I titled my blog Hand Prints for a few reasons. On being children have hand prints everywhere whether its the window, an art project or the table covered in food. Hand prints symbolize leaving a mark on something. Not only do I want to leave my own hand prints on the world, I want to teach children to leave their marks also.