Hope Learning Services

Program Days Dec 20-22

Dec 20–22, 2021

Theme: PARTY TIME — Celebration Central Right Here!

Person-Centered Thinking & Safety

Monday December 20, 2021

Today Happens to Be...

Go Caroling Day: What is your favorite holiday song? Can you sing it?

Check In

What are you looking forward to this week? What plans do we have?

Closed Captions in Zoom

What are captions? Who here likes to watch TV, movies, or videos with captions? Why or why not?

Here are some benefits of captions:

Accessibility: Captions make videos accessible for people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. Captions also benefit people who are learning to read and people who are learning English.
Flexibility: Captions let you watch a video and follow along if you're in a very noisy place (like a party) or in a very quiet place (like the library).
Understanding: Studies show that captions improve comprehension, understanding, and memory.

Did you know that we can have closed captions in Zoom? Zoom has a live transcription feature that can create automatic, computer-generated captions for our Zoom meetings. Here are a few things you should know:

We recently activated this feature for all our Zoom meetings.
For each meeting, the host needs to enable live transcription.
If the host forgets to start captions at the start of the meeting, you can send them a request to enable live transcriptions.
These are closed captions. That means you can turn them off if you wish.
These are automatic, computer-generated captions. That means there will be some mistakes!
Unfortunately, live transcription only works in the main Zoom session — it doesn't work in breakout rooms.

If you want to learn more about Zoom's live transcription feature, watch this 5-minute video created by Cam: Live Transcription in Zoom.

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Theme of the Week and Skill Builder

Let's talk about party etiquette and communication.

Have you gone to any parties recently?
Share your experience.
Did you arrive on time?
Was it easy to join?
Why is communication important in party planning?
Have you ever been too early to a party? Or too late?
What did you learn from party planning?
Do you have any parties coming up? What can you do to prepare for them?

Covid Mitigation Moment (fun and slightly silly today!)

PRESENTERS: If you don't remember or know the song the lyrics are spoofing, refresh your memory here. You can just read it out loud together or try to sing it. Just the chorus alone can be fun to sing. Give it a shot!

Sing these lyrics to the tune of "Gimme 3 Steps."

Holiday Safety Mad Libs (optional)

Use this custom fill in form to create truly ridiculous holiday tips. Then read the real holiday safety tips.

PRESENTERS: The link goes to a page inside our web site, so use the BACK link on that page to come back here, or use the BACK arrows on you browser.

Gratitude Round Robins

A quick exercise you can do is Gratitude Round Robins. To participate, go around in a circle and name something that you appreciate about a peer you can see on your screen.

The group can do a second round and choose a second peer to appreciate.

PRESENTERS: If your Zoom gallery view is changing a lot because of how the audio is being picked up, you can spotlight someone and ask a participant YOU see next to them in YOUR view to give an appreciative comment. Remember people with low expressive language or English can still do a positive gesture on camera or give a reaction in the tool bar. You can decide on gestures and signals in your group that have meaning and can stand in for spoken language.

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Chat time:

What is something you’ve been thinking about lately that no-one has asked you about yet?
Would you rather visit the bottom of the ocean or the surface of the moon?
Does Bigfoot exist?
What was your favorite childhood story?
If cats could talk then what would they say?
Virtual snack share

What did we learn/practice today?

What are we doing this afternoon?

What brought joy to our hearts today?

Civics Education and Community

Tuesday December 21, 2021

Today Happens to Be...

Winter Solstice: Today is the shortest day of the year. Let's read about some winter solstice traditions from around the world
Dongzhi Festival: Do you know about or celebrate Dongzhi Festival?

Check In

Good morning! How is everyone today?

Closed Captions in Zoom

Do you know the difference between captions and subtitles? What's the difference between open and closed captions? (Presenters: See which of these terms participants are familiar with before moving on.)

Captions describe speech as well as important sound effects and music. Captions are essential for people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.
Subtitles just convey speech. Subtitles are often used when watching something in a different language.
Closed captions can be turned on or off. You don't have to view them if you don't want to.
Open captions are permanently “burned into” a video. That means you can't turn them off.

Have you used the closed captions in Zoom?

What did you think of them?
Were they helpful?
Were they accurate?
Are you able to turn them on and off?

Covid Mitigation Moment

CDC: When to Wear Gloves

CDC: How to Select and Use Hand Sanitizer

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Holiday Party Toasts

Why might you give a toast at a party? Have you ever given a toast before?

Watch this YouTube video on Giving the Perfect Toast. Then, have people go around and give a short toast. How can you give a nonverbal toast?

Giving a toast on Zoom: spotlighting, unmuting

Zoom documentation: pinning a participant’s video
Zoom documentation: spotlighting a participant’s video

Coloring & Counting

Presenters: Open the linked document and share your screen. Encourage participants to color in the picture using Zoom's annotate feature.

Then, count the shapes. How many triangles, circles, and stars can you find?

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Snow Flake Blink Count

You'll be able to see each link below for 5 seconds. Then tell the group the number of cubes that were colored in. If you know multiplication, you can use that knowledge to speed up your count. You can do this as teams, or just for fun to see who can count quickly.

PRESENTERS: Show each view and count down 5 seconds, then use CTRL and the "W" key to close that window. Or just the back button, or stop sharing.

What did we learn/practice today?

What are we doing this afternoon?

What brought joy to our hearts today?

Well Being and Social Connection

Wednesday December 22, 2021

Check In

Welcome! What are you thinking about today?

Upcoming Holidays

Reminder: There is no program on Thursday or Friday this week.
Christmas is on Saturday! What do you know about it? Does your family celebrate? How do you like to celebrate?
Kwanzaa is coming up as well! What do you know about it? Do you celebrate?

Captions

Have you used the closed captions feature in Zoom? Do you have any questions about it?

Did you know that you can watch a movie with captions at the movie theatre? At a regular showing, if you request closed captions, you'll likely get a device just for you that will display captions. Learn more at AMC's webpage for Assistive Moviegoing.

Also, open captions are becoming more popular at movie theaters as well. Open captions mean that captions are turned on on the big screen for everyone to see. Read this NPR article to learn more: The world's largest movie theater chain is adding open captions at 240 U.S. locations.

Does anyone here have a holiday movie tradition with your family?

PARTY TIME!

Today is about sharing and enjoying one another's company. So don't stress and only do the things you really want to do together. And feel a great warm hug from the universe for coping so well with so much. You are all truly amazing!

Sing-along and Dance

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Holiday Party Toast — Mad Libs!

Fill in the [ ] below with an emotion/noun/name etc.

Presenters: Ask participants for items below ("What's an emotion that you can feel?") and write down their answers. Then, read the toast aloud to the group. Alternatively, use this Interactive Version. See if any particpants want to fill in the blanks and read their own toast as well!

I am very lucky because I get to share this special day with all of you. That makes me feel [emotion]. Thank you for celebrating this [holiday] with me. I especially want to thank [a person’s name]. Without their help, I wouldn’t have been able to [verb] at all this year. I have really enjoyed [verb, -ing form] with you all. We have learned so much together. For example, I learned that [another person’s name] likes [a type of animal, plural]. I learned that [another person’s name] can speak fluent [a language]. Finally, I also learned how to [something you do at home] — thanks to [another person’s name] for helping me learn that! I hope you all have a [adjective] holiday. Good night!