Girls LitClub in Port Chester Receive A Special Visit

The Girls LitClub in Port Chester, New York, recently received a visit from an empowering female role model. Blanca Lopez, president of the Board of Education in Port Chester, stopped by JFK elementary to speak to the Girls LitClub. The girls prepared questions for Ms. Lopez, and were able to learn from her experiences.

We want to give a special thank you to Yvette, the Girls LitClub facilitator in Port Chester for arranging for this day!

The Girls Club at JFK Elementary School in Port Chester, NY is still rolling!

By: Facilitator Alyssa Dudzik

In the past two sessions, the group has excitedly read aloud "Where the Mountain Meets the Moon" by Grace Lin.  Using their creativity, each girl created their "own endings" to the story based on what they learned about the plot, characters, and illustrations in their Girl Clubs notebooks!  The club then went around and shared their own endings, chock full of exciting tales filled with dragons, bravery, and true love.  The JFK girls loved this book so much that they planned to read this chapter book aloud for 5 minutes each week so they can hear the ending Grace Lin chose.

The girls also continue to work on their Seven Strengths posters!  Of all the strengths, (Confidence, Compassion, Sisterhood, Curiosity, Belonging, Esteem, Hope), these girls almost all chose HOPE as their favorite!   After brainstorming what each of the seven strengths mean to them, the girls paired up and wrote words and drew pictures for each strength on bright yellow paper.  Their poster will proudly be featured at LitWorld's fundraising Gala in May!

LitWorld Girls Club at JFK Elementary in Port Chester, NY!

The Girls Club in Port Chester, NY has finally begun!  4^th and 5^th grade girls of JFK elementary have been doing some exciting things in the past couple weeks!  In the first session, the girls learned all about LitWorld and the fun things they would be reading and writing about this cycle!  They also arrived to find personally decorated notebooks for each of them, made by their Girls Club mentors, high schoolers from Convent of Sacred Heart in Greenwich, CT!  The girls were excited to have their very own place to express themselves through writing!  Comprised of both old and new friends, these girls are excited to learn new things!!  A great start to our Girls Club:

After talking together about what LitWorld and Girls Clubs are, all the girls, LitWorld facilitator Alyssa Dudzik, and JFK teacher Yvette Vera-Pignato created an amazing Seven Strengths Poster!  On joyful yellow paper, the girls wrote and drew what they feel each strength means to them: Belonging, Curiosity, Sisterhood, Compassion, Confidence, Esteem, and Hope!  This poster will be hung up during every Girls Club meeting!

The JFK Girls Club have most recently created Heart Maps.  After reading “Whoever You Are” by Mem Fox, the girls talked together about what they feel belonging means.  The girls then created Heart Maps to help them begin to think about the different ways we all belong to groups and individuals in our lives.  The more of our heart the relationship takes up, the more important it is to us!  The girls used markers, colored pencils, crayons, construction paper, and crazy scissors to each make their very own heart maps!  Some things the most girls included in their heart maps were friends, family, being a girl (and of course, Justin Beiber!!)