September 6, 2016 I was conflicted with two ideas today. I know for sure I want to help children, but I didn't know how or where. I wanted to help at my local mosque and give back to them for what they gave to me. They helped create my character and because of the loving environment they offered me I am the person I am today. However, I have been working with them for two or three years now and feel like I would have been doing what I've done for them all along. That’s why I thought working with the Village will give me more experience. I want to work with them because the children that they try to help don’t have an ideal life. I for one know how heartbreaking it is to lack the affection that one needs from their family members. I am not completely set in what I want to do with these children or even how The Village works, but I did get a contact. Henry Burgos is my contact and works at The Village as VP of Human Resources. Hopefully he can help me out a bit. September 7, 2016 I’ve have started my email draft to Mr. Burgos. I have also brainstormed some ideas as to what I can do with these children. I was thinking of having some game nights or movie nights with them. I can also become their personal homework helper and tutor. Also, just helping them find hobbies and something to do in their free time can help take their mind off many unnecessary thoughts. September 9, 2016 Today we presented our Capstone ideas in front of the class. I knew my Capstone idea clearly. Presenting, however, was a bit nerve racking because I haven't done it in a while. However, I think I explained my idea well. Also, McKay made a great point about the children in The Village. He said something along the lines of “there are children there (at The Village) who are very different than us and suffer from social, mental and many emotional problems.” This really made me realize why I want to do this project. When I was younger I was in a bad emotional state, that I thought I couldn’t get out of and still feel like that sometimes. I didn’t have anyone to talk to that will understand me and was always on my own to solve my problems. With this project, I will open my eyes to other problems and other people. I will see that I am not the only one suffering from what life throws at them. I will meet and interact with these children and not only try to help them out but maybe help myself out as well. I don’t want to fix these children, there are others who have this job or believe that’s what these children need. I want to be someone that they can just have a normal time away from the hectic life they have now. September 13, 2016 It’s tough getting an email back. It’s also tough getting started on this project as well. I’m still waiting for Ryan’s dad to respond, but I did ask Ryan today to see if his dad has gotten anything back. If this project idea doesn’t work out I have a backup plan. I can probably work with my previous elementary school, M.D. Fox, and work with the children during their after-school programs. September 14, 2016 Mr. Burgos emailed me back finally. I think talking with Ryan helped a bit. He put me in contact with the Community School Director, Barbara Vita, and this most likely means I’ll be working in a school area. It does make sense since The Village does have many privacy rights to uphold. I’m still happy and grateful that I’m working with them and they are offering to help. September 15, 2016 Ms. Vita emailed me back and she was thinking of getting me into Burr Community School. I have never been there but I think this is a new opportunity for me to go outside my boundaries. I’ll also get to have a chance to get familiar with some new places and people. I will send out an email to her to answer some of her questions. I just would really like to meet up or talk to her to better explain my ideas. I feel that talking face to face with someone is so much easier for me than emails or phone calls. September 21, 2016 Tomorrow I have a conference call with Ms. Vita at 1:00. It’s during lunch and I will be talking to her in Ms. Boutilier’s office. I started drafting out what to talk about with her and how to explain my project to her. Explaining my Capstone should be very easy. I’ll just tell her my proposal that I told the class. If she asks why I want to do my Capstone, I’ll explain to her my personal experiences. When will I want to do this Capstone? Preferably after volleyball season when I’m not so busy. She may ask again what requirements I must fulfill because she did ask over email. I’ll just mention I will most likely need a mentor to oversee what my work and sign off that I’m doing it. I would need 30 hours of service, but it is not limited to just that. I would like to work 2 or 3 times a week if I can as well. I just hope that this phone call would go fine and I can worry a bit less. I think I did prepare well for it though. September 22, 2016 Today, I had my conference call with Ms. Vita and it went well. We figured out a time of when to do my Capstone project. I will be a part of “Fun Friday's” for the middle school students at Burr. When I told her I wanted to work with middle school she was surprised because people usually run away from middle school. I want to work with middle school students because I like to take on a challenge. Also middle school is a very crazy time for all students and I barely survived it so I can give them some tips. She mentioned that I can't really talk to these students on a personal level. I just will have to make activities for them. We came to an agreement that I will begin in mid-November. It will give me enough time to fill out volunteer paperwork and get my physical forms for them done. After the phone conference, I got back to her via email to tell her I agree with her offer. Later that day, she replied and told me some extraordinary news. There’s a 2nd grade girl who needs help with her literacy skills. I'll become her one-on-one mentor and meet with her every Tuesday after school. I will also once or twice a month help organize activities for “Fun Friday's.” I'm so excited because I get to work with both age groups and offer more help. I can't wait to get started and I think a potential mentor for me, that Ms. Vita mentioned, was the after-school program coordinator. To be completely honest, at first I was not quite sure about the offer Ms. Vita gave me initially because my whole Capstone project was to help children. I felt that I was just having a social session with them. However, I got to thinking that hanging out with these children is helping them out in the end because I'm giving them attention they need. October 5, 2016 It's so stressful waiting on for an email reply especially if it's for Capstone. I emailed Lindsay Diaz, the after-school program coordinator at Burr to set up a meeting or phone call to ask her to be my mentor. This email was sent on Monday, and now it's Wednesday but the final proposal is due Friday. Now you can see my stress. Thus, I decided to email Ms. Vita if she can contact Ms. Diaz for me and make sure she got my email. Two hours later Ms. Vita replies with Ms. Diaz’s phone number but she also noted that Ms. Diaz has been busy. However, two more hours later and Ms. Diaz sent me an email scheduling a phone conference for tomorrow at 3:15pm. I couldn't control my excitement. I was so happy that I finally was making progress. October 6, 2016 I just had my phone conference with Lindsay. It went well and a whole weight got lifted off my back. I was a bit nervous wondering how I will ask her to be my mentor but it came out easy. I also told her some details of my project and she will send me the Burr calendar schedule. I asked if I should hand her the volunteer paperwork but it looks like I will just send it to Ms. Vita. I can finally complete my proposal tonight and am one step closer to starting my project. November 2, 2016 We have a graphic organizer due Friday. I don’t like the setup for a graphic organizer so I just made my own outline. It’s an outline I’m used to. I found out some interesting information about how poverty affects children. However, I feel like I put too much information in it for my paper. November 4, 2016 I have finally gotten my whole volunteer application for The Village done. I can finally fax it to Ms. Vita. I will fax it with the machine that we have at school. It took me awhile because of the TB test. It took time to schedule it and I had some problems getting back the results as well. However, now that it’s done and ready, I am one step closer to starting. It will take a little longer to process but hopefully I plan to start in December. November 9, 2016 I have had some trouble faxing the volunteer application to Ms. Vita for the past two days. So, McKay recommended that I scan the application as a PDF in Mr. Rodriguez’s class. I can then email it to Ms. Vita. I eventually did email it to her later in the day and she got back to me. I love that she gets back to me so quickly and she’s a wonderful person to provide me resources. She emailed the application to her human resources department and provided me the email as well so I can find out when I get cleared. November 11, 2016 I started writing my research paper. My research paper is exploring the effects of poverty on children’s mental, emotional and physical health and how it contributes to their academic performance, social skills and overall development. I believed this topic is really beneficial for me because I live in Hartford where poverty rates are very high. I also will be working with children who may come from poverty as well and I will gain some knowledge on how it affects these children. It can help me better understand their struggles and become a better mentor. It was hard to start my paper, but that has always been a problem for me. I was advised to start it with a statistic as my hook but I felt that was not an effective enough hook for my paper. So, I started off with a “imagine this” scenario. I thought this would picture an issue in the paper and would be broad enough to start my introduction. I also took out a topic that I included in my outline because it didn’t relate to my thesis that much. It was more for a conclusion but since I wanted my paper to be concise and to the point. I didn’t really need that topic in my paper. The UCONN interns’ research paper guide has helped me out a lot and I think my paper is nicely organized and written. November 23, 2016 I haven’t really moved forward with my Capstone project since I sent my volunteer application because it still must be processed. Due to this wait, I decided to broaden my Capstone project. I talked to Ms. Boutilier about expanding me project. By “expanding” I mean I don’t want to only work with children at The Village, I want to work with other children as well. I have already been working with 6th graders at my mosque on Saturdays. I also have created a religious choir with my best friend at the mosque as well this year. The choir is predominately middle school students because they can hopefully continue it for us. I believe that I can help my 6th graders grow to be amazing and brilliant young adults. Our mosque has an environment where the children gain tons of love and faith that will help them keep on going with life. November 28, 2016 I talked to McKay today to see his outlook on this new approach I'm taking on for my Capstone project. He thinks its okay but to run it by Boutilier to make sure if I should rewrite my proposal. So, I checked with Mrs. Boutilier and she said that I don’t need to rewrite my proposal now but just to journal my work. November 30, 2016 I have started putting down my ideas on how to approach my Capstone and present it. I am still going to work with The Village. My focus with the Village is to provide tutoring assistance and activities for the children who may have some financial problems that restrict them from having a personal tutor and fun activities. My focus at the mosque as an instructor to the 6th grade students is to provide them with some faith and knowledge of their roots and religion. Teaching these students about their religion helps them address problems in better ways if they ever encounter them, especially in a time where there is much ignorance and hatred. I also plan to help other children as well specifically ones who may suffer from emotional problems. I believe I can be a big service to refugee children especially the ones who resettled in Hartford. I have many resources and I took some time to study and learn ways to help them from leadership banquets, the IRS, and Catholic Charities. I can help the children with English and signing up for school. I can also just be a friend for them and provide them with a close-knit community that our Muslims in Connecticut have. I have also another potential mentor for the second part of my project. Her name is Lejla Duric and she is my current instructor and mentor at the mosque. December 6, 2016 I have finally gotten an email for my Capstone. Charity Brown, the program coordinator emailed me to figure out a start date. My start date would be January 3 and I can't wait. We didn't want to make it during December, due to winter break. She sent me the program schedule as well. The program starts at 3:55 pm and I would pick up the students from their classrooms. They have snack time and a bathroom break from 4 to 4:20 pm. Homework is done for 40 minutes until 5:00 pm. They have an activity until 5:30 and then dinner and dismissal. It sounds like it would be a good program. December 19, 2016 I finally handed in my final draft research paper. It's a big weight off my shoulders because half of my project is done. Completing and revising the final paper wasn't so bad. It took me about an hour or two to make the corrections and revise. I did well on my rough draft so that's why the final was easier to write. December 24, 2016 I had made a goal for myself to provide much more fun activities for my 6th grade students at my mosque. My Capstone project is based on helping children and making them happier. I want my 6th grade students to have good memories at the mosque and know it's a place that will always help. So, after finishing up a lesson on the fourth pillar of Islam, which is giving charity, I've decided to make charity jars with them. The girls and boys will design their charity jars in their own way and we will keep it in the mosque to show as a reminder. I've also decided to have them make a project that shows their creativity and knowledge of what we’ve been learning in class. This project is on the five pillars of Islam, which we went in detail during our classes. The project will be due at the end of January. January 3, 2017 Today was finally the start date at the Village. I came there at 3:15 and I met Charity Brown, the program coordinator. She introduced me to the lady that works with the 2nd grade students, Ms. Darrien. Ms. Darrien assigned me a student to personally help because he is specifically struggling a bit. The boy’s name is Damien. We picked the children at their classrooms at 3:55. We worked on homework for 40 minutes. Damien didn't do his winter packet so I helped him get started with it. Damien does struggle with reading even though he should be proficient enough in 2nd grade. However, I had to keep in mind, these children don’t have most of the resources they need. Also these children are basically in a daycare center. All the homework support is coming from this program and not at home. That will be one of the things pushing me to continue this project because I want to offer them that extra boost of help on their homework that they sometimes don’t have. After finishing up with homework, we went to the 1st grade class to play some activities. The 1st graders and 2nd graders were so adorable and funny. We played telephone, hot potato, and seven up. This lasted for about 30 minutes and I had fun just watching them act silly. After the activities, we took the students to dinner and waited for them to be dismissed. It was nice but I just feel like I need to get used to it a bit more to feel more comfortable with the kids and program. January 9, 2017 I was just thinking today, that I may need a new mentor. Charity Brown is the program coordinator and I go to her mostly for advice. Ms. Darrien can be a mentor as well since she oversees my time with the 2nd graders. However, I believe Charity Brown would be a really helpful mentor. January 10, 2017 Today is the 2nd week of going to Burr. I can already feel a familiarity growing between me, the kids, and the other staff. I helped Ms. Chelsea with dismissal and she is a very sweet woman. I made sure the students were standing straight in line and were respectful. After snack I helped Damien with his homework. He had math homework and we used shapes to help him subtract. Another student, Davian, asked for help with his math homework as well. Davian, however, had a hard time concentrating on his homework and wasn’t trying it at all. My mom called me when I was helping and it was funny looking at Davian’s reaction to me speaking Bosnian. He said, “Oh my God, what language was that, what did you say?” So, I used his curiosity to make him motivated to do his homework. I told him, that once he finishes his homework I will tell him what I told my mom. Believe it or not, he finished it in 5 minutes with a minimum of two mistakes. Young children like Damien and Davian need things or ideas that will motivate them and make it fun for them to learn is what I noticed today and what I learned as well. Just the second week and I have been learning a lot of how children work and it’s benefiting me because I can be better equipped to help them. January 19, 2017 I had to reschedule my date this week with The Village since it was final exam week. Instead of going Tuesday, I chose to go Thursday since that was the last day of exams. I helped with the usual outline. Damien understood his math homework very well today. After finishing up with homework, the students had singing rehearsal. The Village is organizing a Black History Month concert for their students to help them be aware of other cultures, races and diversity. January 21, 2017 Today was finally the day I did the charity jars activity with my 6th grade Saturday class. Basically this activity has to do with designing the jars. One of the pillars of Islam, that the students learned was to give zakat (charity). They also learned about sadaqah which is voluntary charity. These jars were sadaqah jars. These jars are supposed to be a reminder for the children to be chariatble in life and it's important to be. However, they reminded me and made me realize with this activity how charitable Capstone is. I was having a tough time understanding how I’m giving back to the community at all. I’m also a person who wants to do much more and I thought I was doing too little for this project. However, I realized to give back to the community one does not have to give money, but just providing knowledge, being a leader, and a helper to anyone in need in any way possible is giving back so much already. I try to make that clear to my 6th grade class and mentioned that in this jars one can put it charitable actions, like holding the door, greeting others and being respectful. I bought two jars so the boys can design one and the girls can design the other. This was an activity for them to be creative and have fun in class. The boys had a tough time figuring out how to design their jar. They wanted to put Harambe on it but couldn’t come up with a good enough reason as to how it relates to charity. The girls on the other hand were amazing and worked so hard as a team and it was reflected on their jar. The boys jar still looked good even though they started 10 minutes before it was due. I also gave 4 students the opportunity to design the whiteboard and it came out nice. We did this activity from 11:45-12:30, then cleaned up and had some munchkins that one of the boys brought in. They truly had an amazing time and I was so proud at the teamwork and how nice the jars turned out. This activity may be simple but having the children understand the inner meaning of this activity and this whole class does get tough. I’m very proud of myself though for offering them knowledge, showing them how to work as a team, and creating easygoing environment in the classroom where we are becoming to look like a family. January 25, 2017 I was thinking about what kind of activities I can conduct for the 1st and 2nd graders. I want it to be an activity where they can design something but also learn from it. Since they are having a Black History Month concert coming up, I can probably have the children make decorations for it. I’ll research decoration ideas and try to plan a time for them to do it. February 1, 2017 Today I asked Charity about the media release form and the decorations activity that I want to have with the children. Charity mentioned that the students at the Village have already filled out a media release form the start of the program. It covers any pictures taken or published by staff or volunteers. I am in the clear for this then. For the decoration activity, I talked to Ms. Darrien since I’m working with her students. Darrien said it was fine and to just let her know when I am plan on doing it. The concert is on February 24th so I’ll probably plan the decorating session on February 14th. February 7, 2017 I presented my activity idea with the 1st and 2nd grade mentors, Chelsea and Darrien. They thought it was a very cool project. I will be doing it next week, February 14th. I will break up the 1st and 2nd graders. The 1st graders will be building the decorations and the 2nd graders will be coloring a person from black history and writing a sentence about them. February 15, 2017 Today I had my decoration activity with the children from the Village. The students did their homework until 5:00 pm. The ones who finished their homework, started the decorations with me. I had the 2nd graders color a cartoon person from black history and afterwards write a sentence about them. I was happy to hear that some of them knew their people. One sentence that made me laugh a bit was “Rosa Parks stood up for her rights.” The 1st graders on the other hand took to doing the cutting and gluing of the decorations. They traced the already cut up shapes of construction paper that I made and cut up. Then they glued the pieces together. Some of the students finished and some didn’t but I got the rest of them done at home by tying the ribbons together. The toughest part was trying to keep the children under control especially when I had two different groups. I realized while working with these students how tough it must be an elementary school teacher. However, it made me happy that they were enjoying the activity. Mrs. Boutilier also came to visit. It was nice to have her come by even it was at the end. She took a picture of me and one of the girls who finished her decoration, Jesmarie. I was so proud when she remembered who Elizabeth Coleman was from her decoration because it meant she learned something from the activity and I really wanted that from them. February 22, 2017 Mrs. Boutilier sent me an email today reminding me of Read Across America Day. It’s next week. March 2nd and I have already started thinking and researching ideas. I was planning on reading The Cat in the Hat to the children and give them a treat of some kind. After that, I will have them write their names on a cardboard cutout of the Cat’s Hat. We will then play a game of “The Cat Says” which is similar to “Simon Says.” I found on suessville.com certificates and printable activities for Read Across America Day so I will also use those and give them to the students. I will also donate a book to each one of the students at the end. February 24, 2017 Today was the Black History Month Celebration. The 1st-3rd graders first had a puppet show put on for them that was about exercise. After the puppet show, they practiced their songs for the performance a bit more. The concert started at 5:00 and it was an amazing celebration. There were speeches recited, step dances performed, poems and songs sung, and the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders sang their songs at the end. Afterwards everyone had dinner and enjoyed themselves. I had a nice time and loved helping. March 2, 2017 Today is Read Across America Day and I’m so excited to do my activity with the students. I got all my supplies with the students ready last night. I got the books, their certificates, the Cat’s Hat cardboard cutout and lollipops. I came a bit earlier to Burr today so I can write down all of the students’ names on the certificates. I helped them out with their homework and then at 5:00, I started reading to them. I read to them The Cat in the Hat and they loved it. It caught all their attention and they listened very well. I changed the voices up for them, so they can enjoy the book. This sparked a memory of when I was about 7 years old, I would read books like this to my stuffed animals and my sister when she was a toddler. I also realized that at that age I was also reading for myself. I wished my parents would have read to me but they really couldn’t because they were busy and didn’t know English. I wondered then how many of these students didn’t have people reading to them. I know many of them that have trouble reading so they probably couldn’t read for themselves. I was happy that I read to them and offered them and myself the pleasure of dwelling into a story. After we finished the story I had them line up to write their names on the Hat. The hat served as a contract that they will read 20 minutes every day. After writing their names, they sat in a line to get their certificate. When I told them that they are getting books and certificates they jumped up and got so happy. They felt like they were getting rewarded. They should feel like that all the time when it comes to reading because reading is a big reward. If they feel like this, they will probably read more and that’s what I want them to do. At the end of the program I gave them each a lollipop. The left-over books and lollipops I donated to The Village to use in case they ever need it. I had an amazing day and it made my heat melt when I saw all the smiles on these children’s faces. March 7, 2016 Today when I went to Burr, I was greeted with a compliment the minute I walked in. Chelsea said, “Erna you have tremendous patience to be able to work with Damien.” Chelsea was helping Damien out with his homework yesterday and she mentioned how tough it is to get him concentrated on his homework. I was happy that they noticed my patience. I have learned patience a very long time ago and I kind of had to. Being the oldest, requires one to be patient all the time and I believe that patience has made me stronger. Due to my patience, I’m able to handle Damien getting distracted a lot. I figured tricks that will get him to focus on his homework. I would knock on the table to get his attention and stared also getting him to sit in a different table away from the other children. Today after finishing homework, I tested Damien on his sight words using the Dolche list. I started with Pre-K words but sadly had to end at Kindergarten words because he didn’t know some of them. I tried to help him remember some of the words by having him associate them with actions that go with the word. It was helping him out nicely. I feel so sorry that Damien is not on his level for reading but I believe that he can achieve it. He only needs motivation and someone to be there to motivate him. I am willing to be that person that motivates him and makes him become a tremendous reader. March 20, 2017 For the past couple of days, I was having a hard time figuring out how to close my Capstone project. I was brainstorming many ideas from painting to arts and crafts. However, I wanted them to have some lasting memories and learn something from me. I finally figured out how to wrap up my project today. I will use a shoebox and make a treasure box from it. Next Tuesday the children will decorate the treasure box. I will have the 1st graders color some pictures to put on it and the 2nd graders cut up some shapes. On Wednesday, we will make promise coins to put in the box. I will write on the board “I promise to…” and they should finish the promise. I will give each one of the students a thank you card afterwards. March 28, 2017 Today was the first day of wrapping up my project. I brought in the painted shoe box and supplies for decorating it. The 2nd graders started their decorations while the 1st graders did homework. I made templates for the 2nd graders to use if they wanted and gave each of them construction paper. They could cut up any type of shape they wanted to put on the treasure box. After they cut their shapes, they glued the shapes wherever they wanted on the box. The 1st graders then colored a mini picture I printed out for them. After they finished coloring they glued their picture on the box. I also gave the students each a glittery star to put on the inside of the box. The stars are supposed to represent them because they are all stars in my mind. Today was just an amazing day. Even Serenity, who before the program started said “I hate afterschool program,” told Ms. Chelsea that she loved it and wants me there every day. When I came home I got ready for tomorrow’s activity. I made thank you cards for the students with each of them having a personal note in there. I closed the card with chocolate taped over it. I also cut up yellow construction paper that would act as tokens for them to write their promises on it. March 29, 2017 Today I went back to finish up the treasure box activity. I told the students that they have to make tokens or coins with promises on it and give it to me to get something in return from the treasure box. They were so excited and started writing promises right away. They asked me what promises can I make. I said read 20 minutes a day, listen to my parents, or really whatever you need to get better at. After we finished the promise tokens, we went to the rug to read a book. Some of the promises the students made was to read more so I was trying to fulfill their promises by reading to them a bit. We read Where the Wild Things Are and they enjoyed the book a lot. After we finished I told the students to put up their tokens in the air and started calling out people to give them their cards. They got so happy and excited and couldn’t wait to open their cards. They all give big and heartwarming hugs. Those hugs and smiles were the best part of this whole capstone journey.