Commerce East – Fall Festival Style

It is time for our annual Fun Fall Festival. In preparation for our celebration, we made a Piñata! This year, we’ve searched far and wide on the World Wide Web for our inspiration and found this on go4costumes.com: 



Our inspiration



After some deliberation, we settled on making our own. We had planned on making a round head then painting it to look like a skull, but we were over ambitious and tried this:

Staff Shane cut out the jaw and we taped it on a punching balloon with masking tape. We prepared the the paper by cutting it into strips.

A glue solution of 1 part water to 2 parts glue.

We applied two layers of newspaper.

To save time on painting, we finished with two layers of white paper:

The white paper worked so well, we didn't have to apply white paint. The piñata was left to completely dry in the coat closet before we popped the balloon. We decided to have fun with paint and gave our piñata a face.

Our piñata needed a body so we decided to enhance our artistic skills. We gave our pinata a body.

We ran out of white paint so our piñata got dressed...with red stilettos.

PAI west side researches Healthy Choices!

Today we learned how exercising in nature boosts our mental health.

(NaturalNews) Just five minutes of exercise in a natural place is enough to significantly improve mood and mental health, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Essex and published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

"It's important that people experiencing depression can be given the option of a range of treatments, and we would like to see all doctors considering exercise as a treatment where appropriate," said Paul Farmer, chief executive of the mental health nonprofit Mind.

Mind distributes grants to local environmental projects that run outdoor activities for people with mental illness.

Researchers compared the results of 10 different studies on a total of 1,250 participants, examining the mental health effects of outdoor activities such as walking, cycling, gardening, fishing, boating, farming and horseback riding. They found that within five minutes, people engaging in exercise in a "green" setting such as a park, garden or nature trail experienced significant improvements in mood and self-esteem. 

Although the effect persisted during longer bouts of exercise, the biggest improvement in mood was seen in the first five minutes.

"Self-esteem and mood are strong indicators of good mental health, and also, in the long-term, of good physical health," said lead researcher Jules Pretty.

Other effects measured included improvement in levels of stress, blood pressure and stress hormones.

Exercise in green spaces was significantly more effective than exercise in urban surroundings. The effect was strongest in places that had water, and among those who were younger or mentally ill.

Pretty suggested that employers at stressful workplaces could encourage their employees to take lunchtime walks in nearby parks. Similar programs might prove helpful with youth offenders, as well.

"A challenge for policy makers is that policy recommendations on physical activity are easily stated but rarely adopted widely," he said.

A major advantage of "green exercise," he noted, is that it is drug free and very low cost.

Sources for this story include: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8654350.stm; http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/peter-stanford-how-....

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/029711_mental_health_nature.html#ixzz28FRrMsTl

Commerce East—Fall



The tree outside PAI



Aside from the color changing leaves, a lot has changed on the East side since we last posted.

We said goodbye to our staff Teresa. She is doing well at another PAI site. We welcomed two new awesome staffs: Jamie and Janeice.

Our rooms are looking more like fall. The Seasonal Creations class made decorations for the room walls and October has arrived with a WOW!



Transforming paper plates into Pumpkins



The many faces of Seasonal Creations

The amazing trashbag witch!

Here at PAI, we have plastic spiders issues