Could A Clown Give a Boost For a Writing Assessment?

byreading

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Updated 10 years ago

New experience tonight. I went to the right night of children's disabled night at a children's indoor play area about an hour from my home. I was not sure how things would work out. Last night I had told my husband I might wait until next month to go, since I had already told my Mexican adult reading students I would see them Tuesday.

My husband suggested I go because this could open up something else along the way. There would be new people to meet as well as people from last time. I decided I would tell my student I would do a short lesson on Wednesday at this week before going to see Mom and then the rest of the month it would be Tuesday reading class as usual.

I was delighted that he agreed. Now I had an open door to visit for the 2nd time to the children's disabled night. I had alreay been told by the owner that it was O.K. to bring in glitter tattoos, so I decided to see what happened tonight.

They were calling for snow and ice tomorrow. Silly since it was in the high 50s today. There was also a watch for areal flooding. I was not sure how many would show up since the rain might happen. I know by experience that some parents have a problem with children with autism if it is storming. They do not like the noise.

I decided that no matter how many kids were there, or if they cancelled the children's disabled night I would go anyway. It was a night out as a clown. When I first drove up, I noticed the parking lot was full. That was exciting. Now, who would be in there and would they want to see me was the question.

I decided to walk in and smile and get a table and start laying out my stencils for my glitter tattoos. At first I layed stacks out of the same thing, and then I thought I better just lay out one of each because someone could come and grab stencils off the table.

It worked out that the first person to take interest in me was the same little girl who I met the first time. She came up and chose a zebra glitter tattoo stencil. I told her to take it to her mom and see if it was O.K. I cleaned her arm off and put the stencil on her arm where she chose what colors of glitter she wanted and told her I was going to put glue on her arm.

She thought it was silly to put glue on her arm, but I let her know the glitter would not work without it, so she consented. She wanted all of the colors on her zebra, so i told her she could choose 5 colors. She was delighted with her colorful zebra.

Next 2 sisters from the last time came to see me and one chose a pretty flower and the other one chose I Love Dogs with an I that looked like a bone. The sister with the flower had some interesting conbinations of color. She wanted 2 petals green and 2 petals purple and she wanted some other colors. The girls were tickled with the results and I was able to take a picture of their arms with permission.

Next there was a little boy who chose I love cats. He wanted it all black glitter. The cat was black, the heart was black, the I was black. He was very satisfied. I told his mother the glitter tattoo would last even through showers for a few days, but if she wanted to take it off, it would come off with baby oil or lotion.

Other ones I did was a panda bear, a shooting star, and a butterfly. One girl purposely got a spider stencil to scare her daddy with. I told her, "we don't scare." "Starfish doesn't scare."

The highlight of the night was when I got the attention of a group of teenagers. Now that is something clowns have limited experiences of. Teens in my area either think we clowns are silly, foolish, or they act like they are afraid so their boyfriends will chase them.

there was one girl who told me she was having her writing assessment tomorrow and she wanted a glitter tattoo of the Superman emblem. She said she needed all the help she could get since the assessment was coming up.

Now, I know that the glitter tattoo did not improve her ability to write, but it might have boosted her confidence. She was delighted with it. It is fun when I have that clownable moment (something like a teachable moment) when something I do as a clown turns around how someone feels about themself or something that they are doing.

I told her about my blog I was using to bring people into clowning and told her there was a clown shortage in the United States. I told her that teenagers had the key. Most teens who want to become clowns are waiting until later, and while they are living their life, the older mentor clowns are dying out.

She told her mother, "mom, can I be a clown?" Her mother said she was going into roller derby right now. She said, "but Mom, what if I don't like roller derby?" Her mom said, "well, maybe I do not need to spend this money for you to go."

Then the issue of schedules was brought up. I knew I had the answer to that one. A clown can be a clown around any schedule. They go out when they want and do the gigs they want around any schedule. It was a fun night of clowning and meeting the teens was a star clownable moment.

Afterwards, I was gathering my trash and one of the young adult workers asked if I had gone to clown school. I said, "no, but my husband has." He then told me of a friend who right out of highschool went to clown school and became a clown. I asked him if he had the clown's number because I would like to meet a new clown. I was given a number. That was an unexpected addition.