Shraddha Lulla
Day 1 and 2 - Baking
Day 1 and 2 of the four-day JA course (that lasts 2.5 hours each day) were mainly focused on baking as a form of therapy.
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On Day 1, students got all of the dry ingredients in order to make pie dough, including all-purpose flour, pastry flour, and salt. They then worked to cut butter and used a pastry cutter to incorporate it into the flour mixture. After doing that, students knead their dough to make it more of a cohesive pie dough. Their pie dough was then put into the fridge to cool overnight, and they then made their blueberry pie filling. This included sugar, cinnamon, butter, cornstarch, and some other ingredients. After this, they peeled apples and cut them in order to prep for cooking them. The process of making pie dough, the blueberry pie filling, and prepping the apples took around an hour and 45 minutes. The rest of the time was spent discussing stress reduction techniques that they already used. They talked about meditation, exercise, and many other strategies that they use to combat stressors.
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Day 2 was spent rolling out dough as well as making the filling for the blueberry and apple pies. They started by rolling out the top and bottom for their apple and blueberry pie, which is the major stress relieving factor of this, since it is a repetitive movement and steers focus towards it. Once the dough for both pies were rolled out, the apple spice filling was added to the apples and put into the pie, and the blueberry filling was added to the blueberries, which were then put into the pies and then cooked. Once the blueberry pies were cooked, students listened to calming music and drew their happy place. They then wrote 3 compliments about themselves, as well as 5 things they are grateful for. They also said a compliment about people around them. They also took a preliminary stress survey. After that, they ate their delicious blueberry pies!
Day 3 and 4 - Music
Day 3 and 4 were focused on music as a form of therapy, as well as listening to sounds of nature.
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On Day 3, students went outside to walk around the track at WHS as well as the pond at WHS. They walked around for about an hour, mostly silently, trying to notice all of the surrounding sounds. They also spent some time sitting around the track and the pond and listening there as well. After that, they went back inside the school and discussed why that was helpful to them, and what sounds of nature really helped them calm down. After that, students spent time listening to some relaxing music playlists. Using those as inspiration, they then curated their own playlists of relaxing music. While adding songs to their playlists, they did some other stress-reducing activities, including puzzles, card games, and drawing. The rest of the day was spent curating playlists and doing these activities. While this was happening, each students shared their all-time favorite relaxing playlist so that a class playlist could be made. The Chef who was working with us throughout this, Chef Feller, baked the apple pies so that students could enjoy them in the afternoon. Once All of these activities were done for the day, students enjoyed their apple pies!
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Since Day 4 was the last day of school, the class was only 1 hour and 20 minutes long. During this short class, students continued working on their playlists, doing activities, taking feedback surveys and stress surveys, all while listening to the whole class's playlist. This was the conclusion to the course.
