Summer Enrichment Programs

Faith’s dream is to be a famous artist. She is very talented at drawing, and particularly enjoys painting.

In Unleashing Potential’s summer enrichment program at Church of the Master, the leaders have helped her find her voice in that. This summer, the focus at Church of the Master has tended toward STEAM – science, technology, engineering, cultural arts and math. Faith has enjoyed those activities, and she’s especially loved the hands-on activities.

“The teachers really support what I do,” she said.

One day at lunch, Tyrone traded a Pokémon card. The way he saw it, trading was an aspect that came with playing Pokémon. Once the trading was over, he assumed, everybody would get their cards back. But then Tyrone asked for one of his cards back, and the other person wouldn’t return it. At first, Tyrone was upset. But, after speaking with the site manager, they realized together this could be an opportunity for Tyrone to manage conflict for himself, and also set the tone for how the younger kids could manage conflict as well.

Working with a team, Bryson engineered an obstacle as part of a drone STEM activity. They taped two cardboard boxes together, into almost a chimney shape. The drone would fly in at the top and come out of the chute at the bottom, like a candy bar being dispensed.

JaRon held a stethoscope to his dog’s chest, listened for a heartbeat. The dog was showing signs of sickness. It had swallowed a spoon.

Luckily, the dog was only a stuffed animal. It was going to be all right. The exercise was from Little Vet School, an organization that had come out for the week to work with the children at Delmar DivINe, one of Unleashing Potential’s summer enrichment programs.

The instructor began to share next steps for the class. One of JaRon’s friends continued to speak. But JaRon focused his attention on the instructor, and soon his friend followed suit. This was one of the ways JaRon served as a role model for younger kids in the program – by modeling how to appropriately express emotions and behaviors.

Outside, the children gathered on the sidewalk, facing a field. They’d just spent the past few hours engaged in rocket science. They’d built the rockets, and now they were ready to launch them.

“All the way to space!” said Luna.

Well, not quite. But it did make it to the far end of the field.

Kaden enjoyed playing video games during Unleashing Potential’s summer enrichment camp in the Ferguson-Florissant area because it was a chance to engage in friendly competition and make new friends.