Super Fridays

I can’t believe summer is just about here.  We seem to kick off summer a bit later than everyone else (or at least from my hometown of New Orleans).  Schools don’t get out until June 21st in San Diego.  Anyway, I’m excited about the luxury of having two interns to help run summer programs.  Both who are full-time.  A new thing for me!  This summer I am trying something new with our preteens called SUPER FRIDAYS.

Super Fridays are fun events on Friday nights throughout the summer.  We’ll be doing three:  1. Nick at Night, a nickelodeon style event with pie in the face contest, fear factor and messy games involving slime.  I thought it was a clever name since my name is Nick, we’re doing nickelodeon style games and it is a night 🙂  2.  Laser Tag – a preteen classic.  3. Reality Game Show – Hiring a third party company who comes in and runs a few reality TV show style games.  They do it all & myself and other leaders simply hangout having a rad time with preteens.

How did I pick these three events?  In early May, I gave a list of about 12 possible events to preteens and asked them to each pick their top three.  These are the ones that made it.  Funny thing was that if I didn’t give them the choice, I would have picked three different ones thinking that was what the group would have wanted.  It is a great example of allowing preteens to have a say in programming.  Preteens want to have a voice.  They want options.  As much as possible I am allowing them to have more and more influence in everything we do.  How about you?