Welcome to REACH - Parkside Gardens

Team Leader: Emma Loughman (eal44@cornell.edu)

Site Supervisor: Matt Yaeger

Location: South Street Ithaca, NY 14850

Parkside Gardens is an Urban 4-H after school program that runs regular program Monday through Thursday and offers two Clubs, Writer's Club and Gardening Club on Friday afternoons. For the time being, regular programming will only run Monday and Wednesdays. However, daily program should resume sometime in the winter. Regular programming is broken down into two age groups. The Cloverbuds meet from 2:30-4 for children ages 5-8 and the Pre-Teens meet from 4-5:30 for children ages 9-13. Tutors should expect to arrive about 15 minutes early to set up for program and to stay an extra 15 minutes after program to clean up and have time to record the day's progress in our log. Parkside Gardens is located right off Route 13 behind the Rite Aid across 13 from Wegmans. Parkside can be accessed via bus by the T-Cat Route 15 leaving from the Green Street/Commons station to Titus Towers, which is located right behind Parkside and is only a three minute walk to the site. Students can take either the 30 or the 15 from Sage Hall to reach the Commons. Carpooling is another option to reach Parkside. There is generally always a tutor that will be driving down from campus each day, so carpooling is generally the best option and most convenient.

Programming is broken down slightly differently within each age group. For the younger group, the kids will arrive and have a light snack. After snack there will be choice time where they can choose to participate in a different daily activity led by either the site leader or by a tutor or have computer or reading time. Programming ends with reading time that can take place in a groups or one-on-one depending on the number of kids attending program that day. The Pre-teens will arrive and have snack while they work on homework or complete an educational activity that can be used toward homework credit. After homework and staff, the kids also have choice time and can choose between the daily activity or time in the computer lab or library.

Writer's Club and Gardening Club differ in that both the Cloverbuds and the Pre-teens meet together for these Clubs. Friday's will begin with snack time which is then followed by journal writing and drawing. Each week, there will be a different educational activity offered that focuses on writing and reading skills. Following this activity is Gardening Club which will be run by a Cornell graduate student. Youth have the opportunity to plant and maintain two on site-gardens. During the warmer months we will actually be outside actually working in the garden, while in the cooler months we will have the opportunity to research gardening and learn more about different plants and gardening techniques.

One important aspect if Parkside is monthly activity planning for each tutor. This is a great opportunity to exercise additional leadership roles with the kids and also gives each tutor an opportunity to be creative and come up with their own unique activity. Activities can range from cooking projects, to science experiments, to team building exercises. One of the other great benefits of tutoring at Parkside is its intimate environment. On any given day there are generally three tutors per time slot and usually no more than eight youth attending program. This low tutor to youth ratio creates the perfect environment to really bond with the kids and form close knit relationships through out the program. It's wonderful to have all of the kids remember you and to be able to know each of them well enough to cater to their individual learning styles and choose activities that you know will appeal to them personally.