I remember when I was still in elementary school and they would always ask me what I wanted to be when I grow up and I would always tell them right away that I want to be a teacher. I would spend hours and hours playing with the neighbor kids playing what we called school and we loved taking turns being the teacher. We would write up little assignment and then correct them. I'm pretty sure that we thought we were pretty cool! haha My little childhood dream finally came true just the other day. Emily the normally teacher at the center told me that I could teach the children whatever I wanted. I knew that this was going to be different then when I was use to messing around with the neighbors kids. I sure had my work cut out for me because the kids only knew very little english and I knew close to no words of their mother tongue that they are use to speaking in. I choose to work on there shapes with them since it was around math time and I knew that they haven't covered that in awhile. The basic shapes that we covered were triangle, circle, square, and rectangle. They started off by singing a little welcoming song for me since I was considered their new teacher. Whenever they sing it is so adorable! The first thing that I did was draw the four different shapes up on the chalkboard and had the kids all together say each shape as I pointed it out. At first there was a lot of different mix ups but it didn't take them long to get the hang of it. I felt like we had went over the shapes at least like twenty times and I was getting so sick of it because for me it was very repetitive but I had to remind myself that these are only little kids so they need the repetition plus they aren't even speaking in there original language so this is good for them. Once the children had the shapes all down I wrote each of the shapes names under the shape then they were handed out their notebooks and told to draw each shape and write the name under it. This took a good thirty minutes plus I had to try to check all of them. Thankfully Emily was helping me out and the kids that really had no idea what was going on I would send them to Emily. Back to the chalkboard I went with forty-one pairs of eyes looking at me waiting to see what they would learn about next. We went over the shapes one more time real quick then I tried to explain to them that we are going to make a person out of shapes. This way we were able to work on our shapes some more but also go over some basic body parts like head and arms. I drew a triangle and labeled it as the head. The kids then would write this down in their notebooks. Next I drew a circle for the stomach and eyes, rectangle for the arms and legs, and squares for the hands and feet. I would go around the room after drawing each new body part (shape) and glance over the papers. Some kids really got it and their person was turning out great but then there were also a handful of kids that were still looking at a blank piece of paper by the time we were finished. As a class at the end we practiced going over the shapes and body parts one more time then those kids who had finished were allowed to go and play outside so it gave me an opportunity to work with the kids who had no idea what was going on. This took a very long time but I'm sure it was good for these children to finally get the individual attention they need since they normal don't get any. I felt awesome once some of the kids finally got it down. It really felt like my time here was starting to have an impact on these kids. Later on Emily even had me handle the kids on my own when they were drinking their porridge. Thank goodness I remembered the start of their pray otherwise I would have no idea what to do. The first time they did it you could tell they didn't try at all and it sounded like they were just trying to get away with something since their normal teacher wasn't there. But I'm sure that they didn't realize that I have been listening to them do this for over a month now so I know how it is suppose to sound. You bet I made them repeat it. That was the end of them trying to pull my leg. When there was only few children left in the room drinking their porridge it was nice to talk to them since we were not surrounded by all of the other little children. That day when I went home for lunch I ate quick and then just fell asleep right away after that. I definitely now have realized how hard Emily has to work everyday. I don't think I could ever handle doing that everyday. But it is fun every once in awhile. Now time to go run around with all of the little ones outside!
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