Wow, today was amazing. It was our first day of service here at Rising Star. We were assigned to education today. It had such a neat experience working with the children. They are so confident and exited about school and learning. They all speak Tamil but they're learning English, so that's mostly what we tutored them on. There are grades kindergarten through 12th grade... except they call them standards instead of grades. They said there are about 250 students. Many of them have parents who are affected by leprosy, and the others do not have family members who are affected by it. Also, each of the students have 3 sponsors. It's amazing the way the community and others in the world reach out to these kids. I want to sponsor one so badly! It's humbling to be apart of this program.
Here's what we did in the schools... English tutoring with kindgarteners, reading with upper level students, computer lab with kindergarteners, values lesson with upper level students, and PE. The KGs were the cutest. I've never seen kids so energetic about learning. With each kid, we were given a paper telling us what they needed to work on, usually word formation or pronunciation. They are so smart. It made me soo excited to be a teacher one day. Reading with the students was awesome too because I put with some students who are struggling a little. So when they would read something correctly in English and I would tell them "good job," man, the looks on their faces were priceless. That's what I'm looking forward too with teaching, just seeing students light up when they understand and excel in school. Computer time was also great... the kids got soo excited to be on the computers and again, they're soo smart with the games and such. During PE time, we learned some fun Indian games. The kids were working together so well and were yelling these Tamil chants while rooting their teams on... soo adorable. It's crazy, they run barefoot on these gravel paths. We were all wondering if that was painful, but apparently their feet are so calloused that they're used to it. Awesome. Last of all we met with a few girls who are about 15 years old and we got to teach them about a certain value. We were assigned to teach them about making good choices. It was neat to hear stories from them about time they made good or bad choices and how their choices have affected their lives. It's a great blessing at this school that they can learn about these good values. I'm sure it'll help them a lot when they graduate and moreso go out into the world. All I can say after today is my love for children grew even more and I can't wait to be a teacher some day. It will be soo rewarding. Today sure was :).
Here's what we did in the schools... English tutoring with kindgarteners, reading with upper level students, computer lab with kindergarteners, values lesson with upper level students, and PE. The KGs were the cutest. I've never seen kids so energetic about learning. With each kid, we were given a paper telling us what they needed to work on, usually word formation or pronunciation. They are so smart. It made me soo excited to be a teacher one day. Reading with the students was awesome too because I put with some students who are struggling a little. So when they would read something correctly in English and I would tell them "good job," man, the looks on their faces were priceless. That's what I'm looking forward too with teaching, just seeing students light up when they understand and excel in school. Computer time was also great... the kids got soo excited to be on the computers and again, they're soo smart with the games and such. During PE time, we learned some fun Indian games. The kids were working together so well and were yelling these Tamil chants while rooting their teams on... soo adorable. It's crazy, they run barefoot on these gravel paths. We were all wondering if that was painful, but apparently their feet are so calloused that they're used to it. Awesome. Last of all we met with a few girls who are about 15 years old and we got to teach them about a certain value. We were assigned to teach them about making good choices. It was neat to hear stories from them about time they made good or bad choices and how their choices have affected their lives. It's a great blessing at this school that they can learn about these good values. I'm sure it'll help them a lot when they graduate and moreso go out into the world. All I can say after today is my love for children grew even more and I can't wait to be a teacher some day. It will be soo rewarding. Today sure was :).
Kids lined up for their morning assembly... at least I think that's what it is ;)
The first student I worked with. Seriously, her smile got me!
They all LOVED singing the alphabet with us!
Goofballs
:)
They love the whiteboards... they were so helpful in tutoring too!
Computer time. This little girl was adorable. She cracked me up. She wouldn't put the headphones on unless we put a piece of paper underneath first.
My brother enjoying some computer time with the students.
PE time!!!
JerBear and I taught these 3 awesome girls the values lesson on making good choices.
Complementary crazy hair come with the Rising Star experience ;)
The rest of the day we enjoyed play time with the kids. It's so neat because they're remember our names now and we're slowly getting the hang of learning all of their names haha. Slowly but surely. There are soo many. It's so awesome. I went out with some kindergarten students earlier and we had a blast. We played on the swings, played card games and just ran around. Also, we carry around our phones for pics and such, so they LOVE taking pictures and looking through our pictures. Their favorite questions with our pictures is asking about our families and if we have boyfriends. They crack us up. Today I played with one of the cutest little boys EVER, Praveen. I seriously want to be one of his sponsors. I felt like we had a cool connection as we played. He felt like a little brother who I already love soo much, even after just one day of knowing him. It's awesome to build relationship with the people here. It's cool because none of the kids are really shy. They love us volunteers and are so interested and getting to know us and tell us ALL about them. I enjoy it a lot. I'm excited that we have play time with the kids every day. Also, at night at 9 pm we have story time with them, where we can talk with and/or read stories to them before they go to bed. They are so fun to be with during story time.
My mom playing cards with the kids during play time.
Great shot from one of the kids who was playing with my phone... but this is what we are required to wear each day to match their culture and to be modest. I wouldn't mind dressing like this everyday... and wearing no make up without doing my hair too.
Praveen is the cutest little boy.
Look at that smile.
Seriously, I love kids soo much!
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