This past week’s site visit was really fun. We got to meet a whole new group of K-5th graders. The school did not realize that we would be there this week but were very happy that we came.
We first started out by having the program director splitting up the children by grade. Once the kids were all settled, we distributed crayons and sticky tabs to be used as name tags. As they were writing their names, we passed out the all about me posters. I went over to help the kindergartners and when I got up to the table, they all started complimenting me on either my hair, or my glasses, or my husky programs shirt. They were too kind. I spent most of the time spelling words out for them, but they got a fair amount of the poster done.
As some of us helped the children with the posters, the others set up the snack. It was much easier to do it this way than having the kids prepare it due how time consuming it would have been. We gave them hand sanitizer and passed out the snack. The snack was cream cheese, celery, raisins, and strawberries. Although the kids didn't get to cut the celery, they got to cut up their strawberries and spread the cream cheese on their celery.
We had a few extra minutes at the end so we came up with a quick game and gave out the remainder strawberries as prizes. We brought along two dice, one with numbers, and the other with types of exercises. We picked three children at a time to go up to the front and do the exercises until all of the strawberries were gone. They had fun with the game and enjoyed it which makes me happy because we had just thrown it together. Sometimes the last minute ideas work out the best. (But not always, so don’t purposely procrastinate until the last minute!)
This week was lots of fun. It was nice that we paired both a healthy snack and physical activity together in one lesson. The highlight of my week was to see a child crying because she thought we weren't coming back… well not actually seeing the kid crying, but the reasoning behind it. Telling her that we would be back the next week and seeing her reaction was so rewarding because you can tell how genuinely happy she was by the instant stop of tears and giant smile across her face. It makes me feel so good to know that these kids actually like working with us and to know that I am getting through to them so much that they cry when thinking they won’t see us again. This class is by far the best class I've taken at UConn!
We first started out by having the program director splitting up the children by grade. Once the kids were all settled, we distributed crayons and sticky tabs to be used as name tags. As they were writing their names, we passed out the all about me posters. I went over to help the kindergartners and when I got up to the table, they all started complimenting me on either my hair, or my glasses, or my husky programs shirt. They were too kind. I spent most of the time spelling words out for them, but they got a fair amount of the poster done.
As some of us helped the children with the posters, the others set up the snack. It was much easier to do it this way than having the kids prepare it due how time consuming it would have been. We gave them hand sanitizer and passed out the snack. The snack was cream cheese, celery, raisins, and strawberries. Although the kids didn't get to cut the celery, they got to cut up their strawberries and spread the cream cheese on their celery.
We had a few extra minutes at the end so we came up with a quick game and gave out the remainder strawberries as prizes. We brought along two dice, one with numbers, and the other with types of exercises. We picked three children at a time to go up to the front and do the exercises until all of the strawberries were gone. They had fun with the game and enjoyed it which makes me happy because we had just thrown it together. Sometimes the last minute ideas work out the best. (But not always, so don’t purposely procrastinate until the last minute!)
This week was lots of fun. It was nice that we paired both a healthy snack and physical activity together in one lesson. The highlight of my week was to see a child crying because she thought we weren't coming back… well not actually seeing the kid crying, but the reasoning behind it. Telling her that we would be back the next week and seeing her reaction was so rewarding because you can tell how genuinely happy she was by the instant stop of tears and giant smile across her face. It makes me feel so good to know that these kids actually like working with us and to know that I am getting through to them so much that they cry when thinking they won’t see us again. This class is by far the best class I've taken at UConn!