Bring Your Child to Work Day

Had a great day at work volunteering for the Bring Your Child to Work Day (BYCTW). Lots of privacy and health issues prevent most hospital staff from bringing their kids into patient rooms or surgery suites, so we set up some tours and simulated events to help them get an idea of what their parents do at work.

Our theme was health and nutrition, so we geared the activities towards that: there was lots of exercise, a healthy snack workshop, a tour of radiology, chicken stitching--suture practice on the skins of chicken parts, and guest speakers included an Olympic pole vaulter and a national champion baton twirler.

I work in IT, so I found some fitness and nutrition websites for our 2nd through 5th grade guests. Not as cool as the Olympic guy, but hey, you work with what you got. The first was the MyPyramid BlastOff. The site taught kids about eating a balanced diet with a visual of a rocket blasting off with the right fuel.

http://www.fns.usda.gov/tn/Resources/game/Blastoff_Game.html

The second was a popular event in the computer room. It was basically a timer that had ten activities like sit ups, hopping on one foot, and jumping jacks. The kids played it over and over and shouted out their times. It wore me out just watching them!

http://www.kidnetic.com/Kore/Fitness.aspx

A handful of "adults" herded around 74 kids for the whole day. (We made jokes about cat herding through the day) Any of you who have participated in such a group activity for kids probably have your own stories for those events.

We had a rather odd coincidence involving the the color groupings we used to split the kids into four groups; red, yellow, blue, and green.

Earlier in the day, a member of the red group got a minor nosebleed. I commented on the ironic nature of the red group and blood connection to the adult who took care of the youngster. I payed dearly for this comment at the end of the day.

My group for the day was the yellow group ... please take a moment to dream up your own punchline ...




Let's just say that my yellow group payback was cleaning up after someone whose macaroni and cheese did not agree with them!!!

Before I became "married with child," I volunteered with grade school kids at Science Fairs, as a field trip chaperone, and helping at Girl Scout Badge workshops.

Our daughter is now 2-1/2, and I can't wait to volunteer for all her field trips and other fun stuff. Even in spite of the yellow group incident.