An unexpected twist

This past week I had my first Jumpstart session. The day before, two people on my floor had their first session. When I asked them how it was, their faces lit up. It looked like they were remembering the best day of their life. I sensed pure happiness. This made me even more excited to experience my first Jumpstart session, but when we got to Cedar Tree, we were hit with quite an unusual experience.

The amount of children we had caught us off guard. Four. Four adorable, tiny, Jumpstart friends. Six less kids than we had expected for our already small classroom. Four students for six members was a little nerve-racking as we quickly had to figure out how we were going to best conduct Reading for Enjoyment. It worked out well with an awesome 1:1 or 2:1 ratio of members to children. It was clear that the kids loved having so much attention to themselves.

By the time Reading ended, two of our four children were picked up by their parents. Suddenly, we had two kids left for our Jumpstart session. We all giggled nervously about our dysfunctional classroom, but we quickly worked together to make the session flow.

I was nervous that with only two kids, we would run out of things to do or they would lose interest, but we were all greeted with pleasant surprises. The two Jumpstart friends we had left had personalities that filled the room as if we had a class of twenty. We all laughed, painted, colored, and read. We shared in the joy of our children as they wrote their own names and skipped from station to station during Center Time.

Despite the challenge we faced of having only a few friends, I had an amazing experience at our first Jumpstart session. Our kids lit up my life and allowed me to escape the stresses of midterms for a couple hours. I came back to my dorm with so much to say about session that my roommate was shocked that all my stories came from just two little three-year-olds.

Now, whether our class will only ever have two kids, four kids, or ten kids, I know that no matter what, I will leave Jumpstart smiling and feeling fulfilled. 

~Faith Ferber

Corps member

Opportunity