Teaching the Munchkins

February 6, 2011
Teaching+little kids+foreign language = A HANDFUL of SMILES!

After teaching for 3 weeks I think I am finally starting to get the hang of it! I guess ILP did have one thing right, "It just takes practice." No one can really teach you this method without you actually trying it yourself. Every week Jennii, Natalie, and I need 5 planned lessons that we each teach plus one elementary lesson. The subjects are drama, games, gym, kitchen, shop, and arts and craft. We each take 2 of the activities and keep them for 2 weeks and then rotate them around. Since we were getting used to teaching we have kept the same activities for 3 weeks.  I have been teaching Drama and Shop. For drama you read/tell the kids a story and then have them act out certain scenes by using costumes and other props. For some reason I thought since I had an acting background I would be really good at this rotation.... boy was I wrong! It is so hard to keep kids entertained to a story when they don't understand 90% of the words you are saying! I have definitely improved my charades skills. =) We have each group of kids for 30 minutes and so far I have not been able to keep them focused for that whole time. I guess that is something to work on!  For shop you build something and either use it or destroy it.  This is

a lot like arts and crafts so I really enjoyed this rotation. The kids are just so cute =) I am usually not very good with names,

but I think I almost have all their names down. We each have"home" rooms that we take care of and one of mine

is the kindergarten class! From left to right in the picture above is: Dasha, Valia, and Zhenia.There are usually 5 kids, but winter brings a lot of colds. They are so much fun to teach and play around with! This last week for Drama we did Peter Pan, and The 3 bears. With Peter Pan we made little Tinkerbells out of Popsicle sticks.  For The 3 Bears we acted out the story with the porridge, chairs, and beds. We also got evaluated this week, our first time since we've been here. Our head teacher, Ameri, came and sat in on one of our lessons and graded us on a 5 point scale. It definitely made me a lot more nervous having her in the class with me while I was teaching.  Overall it went pretty well. I got a 3.5 so i definitely have room for improvement. =) Another one

of my "home" classes is a group of boys that we have for elementary. In the picture below from left to right: Lubko, Leonid, Andree, and Yurmia. They are around 9 to 10 years old and have so much energy. It amazes me everydayhow much they are able to do! The two in middle, Lubko and Yurima are twins and are SOO smart! They make us feel dumb all the time with how much they know. They can read and write in English really well!  I guess that proves the fact that this program is working. =) For this lesson I was teaching them about the 'flow of air.' Its amazing how much a balloon can entertain a kid! Here are some of my other classes I taught throughout the week, they are just so much fun!

Sophia, Alex, and Nastia

Masha, Dasha, and Sophia

Max, Dima, and Violetta

Alex, Maxim, Artem, Max