6 Flags

Once in a while I get a glimpse of what life on a stage is like. Wanting to please a diverse crowd is no easy task but being an activities person means you can't just run away. Unlike an actress, thankfully, I can change my "lines" and adapt the activity as needed.

On this day in 1845 Texas joined the union and hung the last of its Six Flags. On this day in 2012 I learned that 6 Flags is not just the name of an amusement park but succinctly describes the history of Texas under Spain, France, Mexico (remember the Alamo?), itself as a republic, the Confederacy, and finally the Union we recognize today. My job allows me to learn about all sorts of interesting things, fortunately.

We began the day with a walk to pass out calendars and then had an activity for the "State of the Day". As I handed residents their calendars I let them know about the activity and then mentioned that if they wanted to know the state of the day they'd have to come out. I used this order of things because this was the first time that I was doing an activity like this and I was nervous about how it would go. Reminding and inviting people individually is a great way to ensure good attendance and it definitely worked today.

To begin the "State of the Day" activity I gave them hints like "Lone star", "6 Flags", "Everything is Bigger" until they guessed which state it was. Then I read some trivia questions and gave 1 point for a correct answer. In between questions I asked things like who had visited the state or knew people who lived there. One question was about armadillos and a woman had a funny story about getting one as a present from her army husband. There weren't too many questions so I had the chance to ask about what they would guess the motto of Texas was (oddly enough: friendship) and if anyone had been to a rodeo.

Talking is not always a good way to keep everyone involved so we also played a game involving index cards. I taped pictures of cows to 2 cards and a picture of the flag to 1. The rest were blank and worth 0 points. Then I played songs about Texas ("There's a Girl in Texas" and "Texas" by the Charlie Daniels band were the only ones I could find at the library) while they passed the cards one at a time in a circle. When I stopped the music the person holding the flag got 2 points and anyone holding a cow got 1. This worked okay but what worked even better was allowing 2 people to pass them between each other for a "tie breaker".

There were so many residents there that we were able to keep the conversation going for a while and by the end everyone learned something new about the State of the Day.