Week 4

 

This has been the golden week for both the teachers and the children. This is my first week that I haven’t had any children cry when they were dropped off and participated through the whole day with very few tears, usually over not getting their way in the centers. The children are beginning to find all the areas in the classroom and using their imagination while they are playing with the things they find. In the beginning, we had to introduce some of the things around the room, since these children have never seen anything like this, unless we showed them how to play, they would have just sat on the rug all day long. Now, I can’t keep them on the rug long enough to finish the meetings before they want to jump up and get busy in the classroom.

In morning meeting, we learned about the letter “A”. In Tonga, there are very few letters that start  with the letter A, so the theater included mostly English words (i.e. apple, ax, alphabet, alligator, arrow, airplane, and a few others.) The older children pick up the words quickly and often remember one or two the following class, while the younger ones just sit patiently and listen to the story. The more they see the letters; the quicker they will begin to recognize them preparing the children for reading.

Jeremiah (our prophet for giving God’s message each week) told the children that “God loves them.” He shared the story about Zacchaeus the tax collector, whom no one else loved since he stole money from them, yet in spite of what he did, God still loved him. The children loved acting out the story and hearing Jeremiah tell them all about God’s love for them. Usually, Jeremiah also gives them a task for the weekend: this weekend the children were to go out and tell others that God loves them. So while he is instilling God’s messages on their hearts, he is also making them into disciples.

In the classroom the children were involved in many things…in the previous week; the older class noticed they could separate the sand into “small” pieces and “big” pieces using the sieve that was in the table. This week, we talked about other ways you can separate the sand! Some of their ideas included: picking it out with your finger, putting it in a dish and twirling it around, sieving it, pouring from one container to another one, and using a spoon. All of these techniques allowed the children to sort the sand into “big” pieces and “small” pieces.

A lot of the children spent more time in math building with the math cubes, working on patterns, and working together to count the cubes. In science, the children had insect  cards they could look at and explore. Many chose to use the magnifying glass that was there to discover that when they put it near the cards, it made the bug look “bigger”. And they are enjoying learning about different animal sounds from a puzzle.

 

The children are beginning to settle into their routine, knowing when we have our meetings, choice time, bible time, stories, etc. They are finding each other and learning to play together, as well as, independently. I am hoping to be able to introduce “jobs” soon to give the children more responsibility around the classroom and to engage them in more conversations.

 

“See how much the Father loves us! His love is so great that we are called God’s children.”

1 John 3:1