Day 5 of volunteering

Today I wore my college T-shirt, representing University of St. Thomas. It is the college parade today, and every class chose a college to represent and decorated their door and said a cheer outside during the parade. The class representing Yale seemed to win to me. It was very fun and entertaining watching the kids recite war songs and show school spirit. I organized a paint workshop for the kids to paint their school symbol. It was a great day today.

Day 4 of volunteering

Today I worked in Mrs. Lawton's class. I read a book to all the young men in the class, and explained the concepts of treating others with respect and keeping their hands to themselves. I also helped a kid named Ashton learn to put spaces between his words when writing a sentence. This is also the beginning of testing week for the kids, so I also helped the teachers with organizing the kids to go to their assigned testing stations. This day was more laid back, and i see the teachers and students really appreciate me.

Day 3 of volunteering

Today I worked with Ms. Johnson, who they other staffmembers call the drill instructor teacher lol. This morning they had a nursery rhyme parade and every class represented a specific nursery rhyme. I helped Ms. Johnson and made spider hats for the children for their parade. Ms. Johnson's class were performing as the itsy bitsy spiders. As each child walked up I made them grab 8 pieces of construction paper and asked for a specific amount at a time. I also asked how many more pieces of construction paper would I need depending on how many legs were already on their hat. Doing this I incorporated math with the activity and learned that these kids are very intelligent. I also made them tell me their name and spell it in that order to test their skills in comprehending the things I am asking. The parade was wonderful and I enjoyed my time volunteering for the third day in a row.

Day 2 of volunteering

Today I took a different route, I helped a spanish teacher who is not greatly advanced in English organize and find items for his class. I explained which items belonged where once I found them. In order to get the spanish speaking children to be comfortable around me, I joined them in a salsa dance which they do every morning. After helping Mr. Valderrama organize the class, I sat down with the kids and supervised them as they demonstrated color patterns to me by making a snake with different color construction paper. I learned a few spanish words so I could communicate with the children and make them feel at ease.  I enjoyed the challenging task of working with kids who did not speak English, I had a great time working with Mr, Valderamma and the kids today.

Day 1 of volunteering

Today is my first day of volunteering at the Head Start school. I have been assigned the task to help a troubled child with alot of energy, and very little comprehension skills. This young man named was Paul also, I adapted well with him and showed him advantages he would gain by listening, and paying attention which will ultimately help him comprehend and settle down. We wrote our names, did the days of the week, and also taught him about the circle of starting with the Sun.I worked with Paul for 3 hours and learned alot about my patience with kids and how I actually enjoyed helping kids.