Megan Reigard
YTH 220
Meg.Reigard@student.indwes.edu

Practicum Report
This semester’s practicum I worked at the Body Shop teaching a High School Girl’s Discipleship Group on Wednesday nights. Every week I was in charge of coming up with ice breakers to play with the girls and I also got the opportunity to lead the lesson on occasion as well. I strongly feel that I made a connection with the girls and that they enjoyed what I taught them as much as I enjoyed teaching them.
My supervisor was Julia Hurlow and Charlie Alcock. There were a few times that I helped out with the youth group on Sunday nights, that I got to work with Charlie but most of my work I did with Julia in the High School Girls Discipleship Group. Julia was very helpful and influential advisor who always aided the girls and I whenever we needed something. Julia spoke the first night but from then on allowed the other (college) girls and I to take the lead as she supervised. I honestly couldn’t ask for a better advisor she was so kind, helpful and uplifting.
I have definitely grown through this experience at Body shop both personally and professionally. Personally I’d say I learned to give it all to God, sometimes you could be having the worst day and think your lesson is just not anything of what it could be and yet those are the days that even just one girl is touched by your message. Also I’ve learned how rewarding it is to be able to be there for someone and show them God’s light. This one girl I taught was a foster child who, the first night, didn’t even want to be there; now she looks forward to coming every week and she gets involved with anything she can. Professionally I’ve learned a few things as well. One things is that you can’t please everyone; please God first and foremost and that’s all that matters. Secondly, I’ve learn that you don’t have to do it all yourself; let others help you and it takes a lot of pressure off you. Lastly, I’ve learned that if you ask for volunteers when doing ice breakers no one will step up, however; if you don’t ask them and you make them do it everyone joins in and has a lot of fun.
Some patterns that I’ve seen throughout my practicum experience is that things really haven’t changed much since I was in youth group. Everyone still follows the popular kids and you still have clicks. As I said with the ice breakers; ask for volunteers and you get no one, don’t give them a choice and make them play the games and they all end up having a lot of fun. One thing I also noticed was that I was working with a bunch of high school girls, they’re talkative, but when it came to the lesson they were dead silent. I didn’t know if they were really paying attention or just tuning me out? But even when we think we’ve accomplished nothing God uses something to speak to someone. We had some of the girl’s parents call us to tell us that their daughter loved our class so much that they couldn’t stop talking about it. If I got nothing else out of my practicum experience, just that along that the girls are really getting it; is satisfying enough for me.

Week Nine :)

Gross! I very much do NOT like the rain!!! Just puts you in this tired, don't wanna do anything mood. Well, that's the mood I had tonight on my way to discipleship group. I really didn't feel like going but I made myself. Then hardly any girls showed up so that was discouraging. But I prayed, I asked that God would speak to even just one of those girls. Well, we started off with a few ice breakers. One was where each girl had a sheet of paper that had every letter of the alphabet on it and they had to go around the room finding out things about the other girls that had to start with each letter. Then we played a game called wink murder. One girl is the detective and goes outside the room while I anonymously pick the "murderer" (with everyone's eyes closed) then the detective comes into the middle of the circle and has 3 guesses to figure out who the murderer is. If another girl is winked at by the murderer then she "dies" and the detective needs to figure out who the murderer is before she kills everyone. It's better with a larger group but we still had alot of fun. Tonight was the continuation of purity but because they're wasn't alot of girls we didn't want to do the lesson we had planned, so we prepared for next week. Next week we are having boys come in and we're asking them questions to show the girls how different the minds of girls and guys are. So this week we had each of the girls anonymously write down 3-6 questions that they would ask us (the youth leaders) and 3-6 they'd ask the guys coming in. After that we sat around and talked about anything they may have had questions on and it was just a good relaxed time, which I think was something we needed. All the girls seemed to have a really good time so I was glad. God took something that just seemed to be taking a turn for the worst and turned it into a really good time :)

Week Eight :)

This past Sunday was the Barn Bash!!! It was alot of fun :) I know a couple of the guys from Atlantic so it was good to see them again! I found that the youth ministry majors were the ones who were getting into the concert more than the youth were; haha. But once they saw us getting excited they soon joined in. Wednesday was our second week of our purity series. We started off the night with a few ice breakers. First we got into groups of four and had to pass around the paper four times each person adding to a story. First an intro; introducing a main character. Then a conflict with a villian. Then a battle; introducing a hero. And ending with a conclusion summing up the story. Then we got to read them, they were very funny because you were adding to a story that you knew nothing about. Our second ice breaker the girls had to draw whatever it was I told them on a piece of paper behind their back, and I had them jumping all over the place, it was a good time when they finally looked at their pictures. The last ice breakers we did was a race. The girls split into two teams and each of them put a tooth pick in their mouths. The race was to see who could pass a lifesaver all the way down the line and back first and you had to keep the toothpick in your mouth without touching it. (I took lots of pictures) Then Kendra and Sarah spoke on purity again from the book "The Bride Wore White." This time they started out the lesson with a clip from the movie "What A Girl Wants" A great way to get the girls attention right from the start.

Week Seven :)

This week started our purity series. We started off with an ice breaker where we had 20 items in bags and the girls had to reach in and feel the items and try to guess what was in each bag. Then Kendra spoke on purity. She started off the lesson with a Chris Rice song, and she read from the book "The Bride Wore White."

Week Six :)

We started off the night with Charades. The girls got into pairs and each got a movie that they were supposed to act out and the other teams had to guess which movie they were trying to act out. Amanda spoke that night and her lesson was on standing out. In high school teenagers are always so eager to fit in with the crowd so she talked about standing out for Christ. Also she talked about how prayer in little amounts throughout the day was one way that she grew alot closer to God then trying to feel like she had to take a huge chunck out of her day to set aside.

Week Five :)

I spoke again this week, I got asked to do it about 2 hours before the classes started because the girl that was supposed to do it couldn't make it; so I had to come up with something fast but it was fun. We started off with a few ice breakers. Alot of the girls still didn't know each others names so we played a few name games. First we went around in a circle saying our names and what we wanted to do when we "grew up" and each girl that went had to say their and repeat the others of all the girls before her. Secondly we went around the circle and each answer six questions about ourselves so that each of the girls could get to know each other better. The lesson was on judging others. So on big sheets of paper we listed the sterotypical groups in school and then named characteristics of each group. Then we read a few verses from the Bible on what God says about judging others. . . We should not look past the log in our own eye only to point on the speck in our neighbors, and ... we are allowed to judge people but ONLY by thier fruits.

Week Four :)

My job has no become the girl who does the ice breakers each week, and I love it. So this week we played to games. First I took a bunch of random items and placed then in a bag. Each girl had to randomly pick out one item and tell a story of their week that pertained to that item. Second we played a game called moods. Each girl is given two pieces of paper, one has a mood on it and one has a phrase on it. The girls then need to say the phrase according to whatever mood they have and the other girls have to guess what mood it is. It's quite funny because alot of the times the moods don't match up with the phrases at all. Ashlyn spoke this week and he lesson was on secrets. Everyone has a secret and sometimes teenagers feel like they can't talk to anyone about thier secrets because people will judge them, this turns out to be bad alot of the times. So Ashyn made it clear to the girls that they can come to any of us at anytime if they are struggling and we will always be there to help. Then we got into prayers groups to individually pray for any of the girls that were struggling with anything at that time.