English and Daycare

I've been putting off writing a blog post lately because until yesterday I didn't have much to write about. I started writing a post a couple of days ago. I started writing about the books that I've been reading to the daycare kids and how I started teaching the girls about adjectives and verbs and now we've moved on to articles but then I realized that I'm just going to bore everyone with too much technical stuff. I've been having a great time volunteering! I love the kids in the daycare! I love watching them because they are so resourceful when it comes to entertaining themselves. When I pack the daycare bag in the morning I always bring a ton of books because they love books. They've found more uses for the books than just to read them. Sometimes they stack them up and build towers with them or bounce a ball on one of the books like one of those ball and paddle toys. I also like to bring stuffed animals because the little kids like to cuddle them and the older kids like to balance them on their heads while they walk and play catch with them! I especially enjoy the English class in the afternoon! I teach a really awsome group of girls! It doesn't seem like work when I am teaching them! They love to learn and they are very quick learners but it also helps that they are so much fun to be around! I am very proud of them for the progress that they've made so far and I am glad that I now have so many great friends! It will be so hard to leave them when I go back home! Last week Anju and Pooja did a henna design on my hand. When they first started drawing it, I thought that it would be just one little vine but they went all out and made a really intricate design! It came out really nicely and you can't even tell that two different people did it! I was trying to avoid being to detailed in describing the English class but I can't help it! They have improved in their English so much already! I have been using an English book for ideas for lessons but sometimes, for example, lesson 5 will be significantly more difficult than lesson 4, and it makes it more difficult to judge which lessons will be a good fit. I gave them an English test on Friday (which they were actually looking forward to) but I think that they rushed through it too quickly! They had been firing off right answers in class but the test grades were much lower than I had been hoping for. When I was grading them I noticed that the one who finished her test first had the lowest grade and the one who finished her test lastly had the highest grade! They might have been rushing through it too much because it was too boring. I think it was a mistake on my part by making the test three pages long! Well, I've learned my lesson now and I will be sure to make the next test slightly shorter! They were all really excited when I told them that I was going to bring some English music to class so I made up a playlist on my iPod that I thought they would like but then when I played it on the little, portable speaker in class the next day, at first they seemed entertained but then I got the impression that they didn't particularly like the music in general! They really like their Hindi music and the styles are much different. I don't like Hindi music but since I have been listening to it all the time and everywhere I go, I don't mind it as much anymore. Now it sounds more like background noise, like cars going by or birds would sound when you get used to those noises. I wake up to the sound, I hear it every time I get in the car, I hear it every time I step out of the car onto the street, and I hear it on TV and from cell phones everywhere! I was going to write about trekking this weekend but I will do a separate post so that I can add more pictures!