It’s been a good few days.  Monday morning we practiced our social/conversation skills by having a group discussion about everyones’ weekend and coming up with questions to show interest in one another.  We posed the question ‘How can I be more independent here at Nextstep’ and had significant discussion following.  Cooking Fridays came up, and Kristine and Rory are going to try to take a step back in terms of grocery shopping and cooking.  We’ll go back to some recipes that people feel comfortable making almost completely independently and try to learn about meals/snacks that Nextsteppers will be able to duplicate with little-to-no help at home.  Morning and afternoon free times are other times in which we can practice more independence.  We’ve been encouraging folks to initiate games/activities as opposed to waiting to be told what to do. 

This morning (Tuesday) we did some hard work at the Root Cellar and then came back to Strive for a little calculator work before lunch time.  After lunch we headed to the library, which was brought up as another place to practice some more independence.  We did a little discussing/ brainstorming about what people wanted to spend their time doing/ looking for at the library before we left.  Patrick found a great football book with some help from Jimmy, which he was very excited about.  Jackie searched for and found a couple diary-style books, which she has discovered she really enjoys.  As Bill is on vacation, we had Jennifer (who was a camp counselor at Camp Strive) with us this afternoon, as well as our volunteer Britany, which provided a great opportunity to split up into small groups.  Rory worked with Evan and Jackie on Budgeting (the difference between long and short term) and discussing common fallacies about money and credit cards.  Britany worked with Jimmy to do some research and look through/ start filling out an application for Strive U, as we are always thinking about our ‘next-step’ here.  Jennifer, Patrick and Nate went on a walking adventure to Hannaford during which they discussed safety around cars appropriate social skills to use out and about.  All around a good start to the week!