Intergenerational Programming
One of the many things that I realized as a Floater Mentor is that we continuously have little to no intergenerational programming at many of our sites. There is usually only a few of the older teens who attend Maker Jawn Programming on a regularly basis. Some sites may have more than others, but overall not as much as we would had liked. One of the reasons may be because the older teens believe our programming is only for the younger children. In this way, we are talking about ignoring useful Programming, if you want to know what is relevant for different levels of students, contact best writing service in this way you will be able to prepare quality material that will satisfy all groups. Although we do have curriculum specially made for the older Makers, we just happened to get much more younger Makers who attend our programming regularly. Since these Makers are young, they may not be advanced enough to use certain tools without supervision. Therefore, we do not have these tools out in the open, where the children can get hurt or break it. This may leave an impression that we only work with the younger children. Occasionally we may also have adults who attend our programming, and they would bring their children with them. However once again, the children they brought with them are also of the younger age group.
There are a few ways to go about this. One way is to work on branding our program. It could be that by advertising our program a certain way would allow a better understanding on what our program is really about. We can start by putting up our fliers in the libraries, or putting up our updated mission statement on the Free Library of Philadelphia website. Our program at the Kensington Library had started a “12+ Day” on Wednesdays, where only Makers who are 12 years old and older are allowed in for programming. This may be an idea that other sites could consider as well. Maybe also by having “Family Day,” to encourage programming with all kind of age groups would be something worth trying as well.
Intergenerational programming is definitely something that had been on our radar for a really long time. Now would be a great time to start brainstorming and putting those plans into actions. Especially, if we want to start it this summer, and see what works and what did not work.
Overall, I am looking forward to seeing older Makers joining our program in the near future. It would be interesting to see what kind of projects they would be interested in compared to the younger Makers.
Signing Out,
Chieuanh Thi Nguyen
AKA: Ms. Chieuanh
AKA: Ms. Chewy
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
My Favorite Project This Month: By Harmony @ McPherson Square Library