Our classes over the past two weeks have been filled with excitement. The children are eager to learn everything and anything the volunteers can teach, and the volunteers are rising to the challenge. With each passing week the volunteers are taking more initiative, assuming more responsibility, and developing their own unique styles of teaching.
Two weeks ago we took the children to the Ministry of Youth, where we rented the computer lab for a couple of hours. The excitement was palpable on the short walk from the Red Cross office; the children chattered away, and many ran ahead striving to be the first in line to enter the building. We arranged the groups so that older learners who had used a computer before were paired with the younger ones who had never touched one. First, we went over the parts of the computer and explained basic functions of the screen, mouse and keyboard. Then, we commenced with the first computer lesson on mouse skills!! The children took turns working with the mouse, clicking and double clicking on shapes of various sizes and positions. It was amazing to see the older children explain the process to the younger ones and then step aside so that the younger children could practice on their own; it was a perfect demonstration of experiential education! We spent over two hours in the lab, and all of the children made it up to level five of the Mouse Skills game. The children loved it and they can't wait to learn more computer skills.
The entire class working on the computers!
Children looking on waiting their turn at the mouse.
The older children teaching the younger ones on our donated laptop.
This past week was another great class. The volunteers asked the children what they would like to do and they came to a unanimous decision to finish the movie "Over the Hedge." The volunteers quickly wrote out some questions on the white board to help increase the children’s English comprehension and then started the film. The questions they came up with encouraged the children to think for themselves. For example, question no. 3 asked, “What is one word that you did not understand in the movie?” After the movie ended, each child came up one by one and wrote their answer on the whiteboard (You can see some of the answers in the picture below). Then, we took out the dictionaries and had the children find the definitions to each of the words. We concluded by allowing the children to draw and write in their journals. Overall it was a very entertaining and enjoyable learning experience, and we are all looking forward to our next class!
Watching the movie.
Children writing on the white board.
For now, Uhara Nawa
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