Squeezing In

Saturday two weeks ago we had about 10 of the neighborhood kids come over to color pictures. This past Saturday over 20 children showed up. Our living room space is small so there was hardly room for each child to put their paper down in front of them to color. I think I might have to start dividing the group in two and ask half the children to wait an hour.

I had some trouble with some of the kids acting out and misbehaving. This is pretty typical and I’ve come up with some ideas and simple rules to manage fighting that breaks out and general disorder. This time I only had to make one kid leave prematurely and I have hopes of things going even better next week.

The rules go as follows: 1. No taking markers, paper or crayons from someone unless they willingly trade 2. Only three markers each at a time 3. Leave the house after completing your picture (you get to decide when it’s done) 4. Return the markers and crayons to me when finished 5. No hitting 6. If you fail to comply with the rules, you leave early

I’d like to start incorporating some kind of Bible lesson or story to make these times more meaningful. But for now I’m still trying to figure out crowd control, anger management and how to not lose all the marker caps.