Nov. 1-5, 2021
Theme: World Music — Skill Building: Making Decisions
Safety & Person-Centered Focus
Monday, November 1, 2021
Check In
Introduction (1-2 min)
This November, we will be revisiting the curriculum that we used for online program last November. How much of this do you remember?
This week's theme is World Music.
Check out this list of World Music from around the world! Music is an important part of every culture and this week we will be listening to music from all over the world and learning about how every culture uses music for similar things.
This week's skill is Making Decisions.
Making decisions is an important life skill. Knowing how to make decisions helps us be independent and design a life we enjoy in the present AND the future. This week we’ll practice different aspects of making decisions.
Hope Program Updates
- Share any program news.
- Hope Learning Board representatives did some more brain storming. Check the updates page to review their ideas.
- PRESENTERS: if you have members of the board in your group, let them tell the ideas and explain the page.
Today happens to Dia de los Muertos (4-5 min)
Share what you know about this day, and then learn some more together with this page.
Videos about Dia de los Muertos (optional)
Theme Activity: Songs for Ritual (10-12 min)
Songs are often used for rituals—hear one or more of these examples. What feelings do they evoke?
- Faith activities--Oakland interfaith choir
- Life transitions--Armenian Wedding
- Somber or grave occasions--Bagpipe for soldier
What rituals do you associate with certain songs?
- If you participate in religious services, what kinds of songs go with that?
- What songs do you think of for weddings, graduations, funerals, or coming-of-age events?
- Are there songs that just your own family sings for certain events?
Cultural songs often rely on traditional instruments. Are any of these instruments familiar? Instruments from different countries
<body break>
Show and Share (5-10 min)
Who is your favorite singer? Which of their songs is your favorite? Have you ever seen that person in concert? How long have you been a fan?
Tomorrow's Show and Share is a special occasion you attended.
Skill Builder 01 (10-15 min)
Person-Centered-Thinking: Preferences, Wants and Needs
To make good decisions we need to know more about ourselves. The next exercise will help you learn how you choose things.
Review the definitions.
Like/dislike
Preferences are reactions to things. When we like or dislike something, that’s a preference. We can usually tolerate it if our preferences aren’t met.
Preference is often a fast reaction, but sometimes we learn to like or dislike something after we have an experience with it.
Which do you like better in these examples?
- Smells: chocolate or coffee?
- Colors: purple or yellow?
- Tastes: sweet or salty?
Want/don’t want
Wanting something means we want to add it our life or our experience. It’s different from a preference because we want to acquire it or get rid of it. When our desires don’t come true we may be unhappy but we can survive even if we fell disappointed or frustrated.
- Name one thing you want to add to your life or get rid of.
Affects my survival or well-being
Needs are not like preferences or wants. If our basic needs aren’t met, we don’t survive, or we become unhealthy or unsafe.
Which of the things below are NEEDS?
- Clothes—candy—water—video games—safe place to sleep—Cable TV
PRESENTERS: while doing the survey, emphasize that needs are things we need to survive and stay healthy.
Look at the items pictured and listed in this worksheet together.
For each item decide if it is a preference, a desire, or a need, then mark if you like/want it or not.
<Body Break>
Skill Builder 02 (10+ min)
Safety vs Risk
Lots of everyday activities can be dangerous.
For each activity answer the questions:
- What good results do we normally get when we do these things?
- What bad things MIGHT happen when we do these things?
- How likely is a good result?
- How likely is a bad result?
When a bad result is very UNLIKELY, and the good result is something we really want, we usually decide the risk is worth it, or is a reasonable risk.
Use the worksheet as a guide for deciding if an activity is worth the risk. Are these risks reasonable?
- Riding a bicycle with headphones on
- Diving from the high dive if you are a good swimmer
- Riding a scary roller coaster
- Walking alone in a city at night
- Trying a new food that you've never had
- Buying food from a stranger in a parking lot
Review/Planning
What did we learn? What are we doing this afternoon?
Community & Civic Education
Tuesday, November 2, 2021
Introduction (1 min)
Theme and skills this week are: World Music and Making Decisions
Short recap of yesterday: songs for rituals, preferences, wants and needs
Hope Program Updates
- Share any program news.
- Have you checked the Hope Learning Board Updates page? If you haven't check it out now.
- PRESENTERS: if you have members of the board in your group, let them tell the ideas and explain the page.
Theme Activity: Songs for Special Occasions (12-20 min)
Occasions and rituals are a little different—rituals are usually formal and relate to spiritual practice or important transitions in life like reaching adulthood or having a child.
Special occasions can be part of rituals, like holidays or birthdays, but they can also be more casual or personal, like celebrating a new job or an anniversary.
In the first link below you'll notice that the birthday song is so well known, nobody has to sing the words. We just know it's the conductor's birthday because his musicians say it with a song.
- Birthdays--Happy Birthday Orchestra
- Feasts and celebrations--Christmas Wedding March (familiar bride's march starts at 2 min mark on the video)
- Sporting event--National Anthem
- Personal event like promotion, big achievement
- Rare events like end of a war or celebrating a hero
What other songs for special occasions or rituals can you think of?
If you speak a language other than English, do you know a special occasion song in that language? Would you share it with us?
<Body Break>
Show and Share (5-10 min)
Show and share a special occasion you attended. Wedding? Quincinera? Bar Mitzvah? Retirement party?
How many people came? What was the music like?
Did people dance?
Tomorrow's Show and Share: a poem you like. Can be one you wrote or someone else's.
<Body Break>
Skill Builder 01
Planning an Outing (15-25 min)
Planning an outing for a group means making a lot of different decisions. Pretend your group is planning an outing. Collect the information you need to make decisions that work for everyone.
You have a pretend budget of $20 per person and 4 hours to travel to the location, do the activity, and come back. You are going in January so it will be winter time.
As a group choose from these destinations and identify or find a place near your location that works. Think about the weather.
- Beach
- Indoor Ice Rink
- Movies
- Bus Tour of your town
- Musical concert
Making decisions with good information
Use the worksheet to find out everyone’s needs and what they like.
People can fill it out, or show/tell, about themselves, and the group can use the shared view to note any special requirements
- What kind of clothes will we all need for the event we chose?
- How will we handle lunch? Is anyone on a special diet?
- Does anyone have mobility needs? Be sure the destination is accessible.
- What do people want to know about the outing? What information do they, or their families, need to have?
- What schedule are we following? When do we need to leave? How long will we be there? When do we need to leave to get back in time?
OPTIONAL LEVEL UP-- figure out the budget for the outing. (Entry fees, parking costs, gasoline, etc.)
Collaborating on details
- Confirm with each person that their NEEDS will be met by the plan.
- Negotiate PREFERENCES and WANTS.
- Examples: If you are going to the beach and one of your party uses a wheelchair, will there be a way to get the person and their chair to where everyone else is going to be? (this is a NEED) OR
- If someone has a visitor coming and wants to leave an hour early that day. Does the outing have to end early? Or is there another solution? (This is a PREFERENCE/WANT so compromise) OR
- Someone doesn’t like to bring a lunch and prefers fast food to other choices. (This is a PREFERENCE/WANT so compromise)
How is planning an outing similar to planning a party, which we did in a previous week?
<Body Break>
Skill Builder 02
What’s our city council doing? (12-18 min)
Go to the link for your nearest city and find out about city council meetings.
PRESENTERS: If the city you are interested in is not linked, do a search for "<city name> city council meetings"
- When does the council meet?
- Can you attend this meeting?
- Can you find recordings of past meetings?
- Can you find a recent decision the council made?
- City council members usually represent districts. What district do you live in?
- Do you know of any recent decisions your city council has made?
Review/Planning
What did we learn today? What are we doing this afternoon?
Well Being & Social Connection
Wednesday, November 3, 2021
Introduction
Theme and skills this week are: World Music and Making Decisions
Short recap of yesterday: Music for special occasions, gathering info for decisions, city councils
Hope Program Updates
- Share any program news.
- If anyone was absent or did not get the chance to see the Hope Learning Board Updates, please revisit the page.
- PRESENTERS: if you have members of the board in your group, let them tell the ideas and explain the page.
Theme Activity
Story songs are common in all cultures. Before writing and books people used to record the history of their people in songs. A story-telling song is sometimes called a ballad or an ode.
Listen to these story telling songs. One is a personal story. The other is a song about the violent conflict between England and Ireland in 1972.
What story-telling songs do you know? Do you remember any songs from when you were a kid?
(Itsy Bitsy Spider is a story-telling song.)
- Disney songs
- Broadway songs
- Rap or hip-hop songs often tell stories
- Songs from your family culture
Is there a story from your own life that would make a good song?
Show and Share: a poem you like
It can be a famous poem, a non-famous poem, or a poem you wrote yourself.
Tomorrow's Show and share: your favorite dance step!
<Body Break>
Skill Builder 01
Choosing Friends
- Do you think Hank is probably an honest person?
- Why is it important that Hank didn’t know Lorraine could see him?
- If you found that money on the floor would you do what Hank did? Why or why not?
Using the list of good character traits below, how can you tell if someone has these traits?
- Kind
- Honest and sincere
- Giving
- Patient
- Cares about others
<Body Break>
Skill Builder 02
Health choices: short-term/long-term decisions
All choices are made in the short-term. We choose things every day that affect today, tomorrow, and far into the future. The short-term choices we REPEAT frequently have more long-term consequences.
Long-term consequences add up from short-term decisions. Each item below is a short-term choice.
Fill in the work sheet together and decide if a choice is healthful in the short-term and if it has any impact in the long-term:
In the short-term column write a “+” sign for a healthful choice
- a “–“ sign for an unhealthful choice.
- In the long-term effect column put a frown-face if the long-term result is very bad,
- “0” if the there is no real long-term impact,
- and a happy face if the long-term result is good.
Daily Meals: cake and ice cream for breakfast almost every day and oatmeal only once in a while
Daily Snacks: celery, carrots and pretzels almost every day and chips or cookies only once in a while
On my birthday: 2 giant slices of cake because it is my favorite and so YUMMY
Exercise: Take a half-hour walk at least 6 days a week and do push-ups M-F in the morning
When I wake up: Before 7 am every day except Sunday, when I sleep in until 9 or so
When I go to sleep: Stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning playing video games most nights
Vacation schedules: Take at least 1 vacation every year, sometimes two, to recharge and do something new
Drinking water: I only drink water if I am out of soda
Treats: I indulge in treats on special occasions or when I have something to celebrate.
Holidays: I eat whatever I want, as much as I want, from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, no matter how unhealthy it is.
PRESENTERS: Share your screen, open the worksheet in a new tab, and use the annotate feature to fill it out. The challenge of this exercise to help learners connect that long-term effects are connected to how OFTEN a choice is REPEATED. If we have too much cake on our birthday it's not a big deal. If we have cake every day, that's a problem.
Sharing health choice challenges
- What is a difficult short-term health choice for you? Choosing nutritious snacks? Giving up soda? Working out?
- What makes it a hard choice?
- What kind of help or support would make it easier?
Immediate vs long-term, when to choose which?
Look at the 0 impact choices on the worksheet. Why are those OK? (they aren’t repeated much so they don’t add up)
Understanding the long-term costs
When we repeat things day after day, that is when the results add up in the long-term. It’s not that we can’t have treats, or take a break from exercise.
A healthy life-style is what we do MOST of the time. And treats are only special if we DON’T have them all the time.
Review/Planning
What did we learn today? What are doing this afternoon?
Self-Advocacy, Rights & Responsibilities
Thursday, November 4, 2021
Introduction (2 min)
Remind everyone of the themes for the week: World Music and Making Decisions
Short recap of yesterday: Story-telling songs, choosing friends and short-term and long-term decisions costs and benefits
Hope Program Updates
Share any program news.
- Hope Learning Board Updates, please revisit the page, to see if new information was added.
- PRESENTERS: if you have members of the board in your group, let them tell the ideas and explain the page.
Theme Activity: Dancing music (10-15 min)
Look at these examples of cultural dance and modern dance music—culture is always changing and developing
- African Dance Examples
- Mixing Traditional and Modern moves with Afro House
- Traditional Hawaiian dance and music
- Modern interpretation of traditional Polynesian music and dance
Connection Between People's Dance and Music
- How did those examples make you feel?
- Did you want to dance?
- Dance and music are always changing. People often combine their traditional music and dance with newer sounds and moves.
- What is your favorite music to dance to?
- How does your body let you know it wants to dance?
<Body Break>
Start some music with a beat and dance your body break away.
Show and Share (5-10 min)
What's your favorite dance step? Can you teach your group the step? Is it designed for single person dancing or to be done with a partner? Do you know any traditional or ballroom dance steps?
Tomorrow's Show and Share - your singing voice, or an instrument you play.
Skill Builder 01 (5-7 min)
College options for people with differabilities
Choose one of these colleges or universities and explore the disability services offices.
Choose one or more of these questions and look up the answer/s on the web page of the school you chose.
- How can a new student find out more about these services?
- What kinds of help can you get if you are blind? Deaf? Have trouble taking notes?
- Can they help you take an online class? or use a computer?
Revealing that you have a differability (8-15 min)
In order to get support you have to tell the people at the college about your differability and work with them to choose what kind of help you need.
- colleges can't ask you if you have a differability, you have to tell them
- you have to show that your differability is real with high school IEPs, your hope ISP, or private testing
- the information you give them is private -they don't tell others on campus.
Watch this video: Video demonstrating how to work with a professor to work out accommodations.
It's Your Choice
By sharing that you have a differability you can get help with tests, taking notes, doing homework, and getting around campus.
- Some people choose not to use the services. Why do you think they do that?
- Which option do you think would work for you?
<Body Break>
Skill Builder 02 (10-15 min)
Self-advocacy in a board and care or group home
Read the Spaghetti Dilemma together
Most adults get to choose most of their meals so people living in group homes should get similar choices. Discuss the following ideas with that in mind.
- Did the roommates get any choices about the lunch options for the week?
- Which of these statements is an assertive way to advocate for your choices without being mean or wimpy?
- I hate spaghetti! I'll eat whatever I want!
- I understand we don't want to waste food, but that's too much spaghetti for one week. Can we freeze it for later and have better lunches?
- Stay silent, then throw away the spaghetti lunches and ask friends or co-workers for food from their lunches.
Choose When and How to Advocate
Remember on Monday we talked about preferences, wants, needs? Our wants are very important to us, even if they aren't needs. Part of being an adult is the freedom to pursue things we want. When you live in a group home, you still have the rights of an adult, and that includes choices over things like food, clothes, entertainment. etc.
Skill Building
Staff at a board and care home may not be used to residents asking for more choice. But you can still do it.
- Stay calm and ask "Can we set a time to talk about this without interruptions?"
- Think of what you want to say ahead of time. You can make a note to help you remember.
- Say "I feel that ___________. I want ________________ because____________. "
- If they say no, ask why.
- If you don't agree with their reason, ask a leadership counselor at hope, a friend or family member, or your social worker to help you set a new time to try again.
- You can also write a letter to the staff and send a copy to your social worker
- Stay calm and be persistent by trying again.
In future skill builders we'll learn more about this topic.
Review/Planning
What did we learn today? What are we doing this afternoon?
Knowledge & Fun With Friends
Friday, November 5, 2021
Introduction (1-2min)
Theme and skills this week are: World Music and Making Decisions
Short recap of yesterday: dance music, college and differabilities, advocating for yourself at home
Hope Program Updates
- Share any program news.
- Hope Learning Board Updates-check it out!
- PRESENTERS: if you have members of the board in your group, let them tell the ideas and explain the page.
Modern songs in US cultures (4-8 min)
Here is a crazy-long list of music GENRES. "Genre" means a kind, like blues or rock. We use genre to mean types of cultural activities like art, music, literature, etc.
Modern music genres have roots in the traditional types of music we listened to this week.
This is an amazing INTERACTIVE INFOGRAPHIC that traces the history of modern music back to traditional roots. Watch the animation of the history of rock music, then explore the samples by having your presenter click on the type of music you want to know more about.
PRESENTERS: After the animation of the graphic goes down the page, you can click on any label of a music genre to hear an examples of it and see how it's related to other genres.
Start at the top, bottom or middle and scroll around to find the "relatives" of the type of music you first clicked. Follow one all the way back to where it started.
Are there some modern songs that now seem to be related to some of the world music we listened to this week?
Maybe a little karaoke? (10-15 min)
Free partial songs - click the genre, choose a song, click the play icon--these are short so more people can take a turn
YouTube Sing King Channel - Click a genre from the playlists
Show and share (5-10 min)
Do you sing? Do you play an instrument? Share your voice or instrument with us. If you don't play an instrument, which one would you learn if you could?
Next Week's Show and Share will be: Your Favorite SUPERHERO! Squeeeeee!
Skill Builder 01
Decision Trees (10-15 min)
Decision trees are a way to draw a picture of decisions you have to make.
This decision tree is about PROS and CONS of a decision.
PRESENTERS: Use the magnifier to click and zoom in or CTRL and the + key to zoom in, CTRL and the - key to zoom back out
Pros and Cons are Personal
Not all the pros and cons are equally important to everyone. Remember when we learned about preferences and wants on Monday? Some pros or cons may be really important to one person and no big deal to someone else. Say how you personally feel about some of the pros or cons.
Choose a decision from the wheel OR work on a real decision someone is struggling with now. Brainstorm the pros and cons of the decision together, or if some people want to work independently and share when they are done, that works too.
Fill out the decision tree form together, or indepedently, then share.
Brainstorm other ways you can decide between options.
Optional LEVEL UP
This is a different kind of decision tree. It uses Boolean logic, or the idea of IF _________, then _________. Notice how the lines all represent "yes" or "no" so that if you pick yes, it takes you to one response and choosing no takes you in a different direction. This is the kind of decision tree that is used in computer programming, game design, and artificial intelligence.
bit of fri-yay fun and tomfoolery
Beginner Dance Lessons - hip hop moves
SAMBA! on the coast of Rio in Brazil -- or just go for that Samba Beat and free form it
Here is an acapella group called Pentatonix doing the history of music as different songs sung in order--notice there are no instruments, only human voice
and here's a history of dance in one number!
Remember to keep music in your life. It's your human birthright. If you are a musician or singer, share your love of this wonderful art form with people. Let's always keep our world filled with beautiful music.
Review/Planning
What did we learn? What are we doing this afternoon?
Description Title
Need some help deciding on an afternoon activity?
The activities are numbered. These numbers corrospond to brief activity descriptions listen in the linked document below.
