I Miss Nap Time

Today was the first day of volunteering in preschool for me! We observed and helped the kids learn English word and the spelling of those words based on phonetics. It’s amazing because these kids know Sinhala and English! 

Some of the students at the school were between the ages of two and four, and others between five and six. I split my time between the two groups while the younger group had playtime, the older group was learning words and singing action songs like “head, shoulders, knees, and toes. “ I was with the group playing, so I probably helped the same three girls up and down the slide about 50 times each. lol don’t need a lot to have fun it’s just a matter of being patient enough to repeat the same things over and over again. There was one girl who insisted on standing at the top of the slide and I kept telling her (probably at 40 times) guiding her to sit down, then holding her hand down the slide lol 😅

After that we had some more learning activities followed by some nap time. When that nap time music came on, the students knew exactly what to do! It was the most ethereal sounding xylophone and gong rendition of “lullaby and goodnight” I’d ever heard. Wouldn’t it be cool if we had nap times at work? (Maybe I need to move to Spain where siestas are still a thing… At least I think they are.)

After classes ended around 12:30 for the older group. We spent some time with the teachers to help them with any questions they had regarding English language teaching tips, resources, or pronunciation of English words. we will be working with them again tomorrow and I plan to share Gracie‘s corner to see if the phonetic song is something they would be into. I played a clip and the teachers seemed interested/receptive.

After lunch we headed over to a nearby village. Our host referred to it as a slum. Leslie entered you could see the piles of trash Being sorted for recyclable plastic. As we drove further in, you could see children and families awaiting our arrival. We spent time playing with the children there and helping them learn English. I had a lot of fun with that group they were eager to learn, very respectful. We started by playing “hangman” which is a word guessing game.  Then we split the groups and I decided to play a game of memory with a deck of cards one of my housemates brought! There’s a lot of skill to learn with card games, from memory to numbers, shapes colors and letters. They thoroughly enjoyed the game and I loved watching and facilitating. 

By the end of the evening, I realized I needed more resources for these students. I hope to go to a bookstore tomorrow. The age ranged from about 6 to 15. I can tell that reading comprehension is the next step for some others will be focused on phonetics, and some still learning their letters. Interestingly, some students do not know to read Sinhala or are better able to read English. I started searching for resources online hoping to find books in the form of Google slides or pdfs with drawings, But  I came up short. There was nothing out-of-the-box that I could just use. So I’m going to coordinate with our host to visit a bookstore and purchase a few resources from there before we meet the students tomorrow afternoon. I hope I find more than a few useful items! Till then, goodnight! Enjoy the view from the patio to the side of our hostel.