By Volunteer Julia Berg
Jeremiah plays a couple of rounds of Connect 4 with his counselor as homework time winds down. Connect 4 is a tic-tac-toe-like two-player game in which players alternately place pieces on a vertical board seven columns across and six rows high.
Although Jeremiah claims he is not skilled at the game and sometimes places his chips randomly, he impresses the counselor, a first-grader named Sierra, and a small group of students who watch his strategic moves.
Sierra has just finished her twenty minutes of daily reading when she spots Jeremiah and Kat playing Connect 4 and goes over to speculate. She waits until Jeremiah wins the game to ask if she can try before they leave for the next after-school activity.
Jeremiah agrees to play a game of Connect 4 with her. Though Sierra had never played before, she did a decent job during the game and enjoys playing.
Jeremiah may have won the game, but both students learned that it’s worth taking a risk to try something new and to get better at a task.
Volunteer Julia Berg tells us lively stories about our summer and after-school students at the Carver Community Center. See more of her stories here.
