A Day as Mother Goose

We started our first day of volunteer work at a local school. We weren't exactly sure what grades we would be teaching, how many classes and for what duration, so we had some English language games and activities planned, and we were ready to wing it for our first day.

When we showed up, the school owner said we would spend our first day in "creche", which means the just walking through two-year-olds. Ok, we were open to holding small kids and reading books and playing on the floor. We were prepared to be flexible! What we didn't know walking into the class was that those little kids watch TV all day, and we were expected to "teach", or at least engage those little ones.

They were finishing lunch when we arrived, and as we learned that for the next THREE hours, we would be responsible to engage 30 two and unders, we were quickly coming up with age appropriate songs. We had time to plan our first two: Wheels on the Bus, with actions, and Old McDonald Had a Farm. I took a quick look around the room. No books and no toys, except for two bags of mismatched lego blocks up on a cabinet. Hmmm. Not a lot of resources to work with!

Engaging two-year-olds takes high energy and enthusiasm. Somehow I managed to reach into the depths of my brain for every song I ever sang to my girls at that age. The girls came up with a few too. After 30 minutes Ceci whispered, "We still have two and a half hours, mom! What are we going to do?" Adele and Ceci learned the fine art of TAP DANCING. Making up something on the fly and making it look good.

We pulled down those lego bags and milked attention for about 45 minutes.

This is my favorite picture of the day. It looks staged, but it wasn't. This was Adele working her magic.

The teachers loved us and videoed a lot of our songs. They wanted to take pictures with us and visit us in America.

After singing every song imaginable, telling stories about gingerbread men running, and wolves blowing houses down, which none of those children understood, and going on bear hunts, and attempting ring around the rosy and London Bridge (the two disasters of the day), and counting blocks and identifying colors and acting like we entertained two-year-olds for hours on end all the time, those little kids started to just lay down where they were and sleep. Right there on the floor, or in a chair. One kid even fell asleep standing up! I had to see it to believe it! Once asleep, they were moved to the corner mats, as you can slightly see in the picture below.

That last half hour we lost about half of the kids to slumber.

I don't have any pictures of our high-energy singing, because we were NOT thinking about pictures! I'm glad I got a few during the block building part and toward the end. Those kids were so adorable.

Three and four-year-old siblings came to pick up their two-year-olds, and off they went to board the bus and go home! Kids grow up quickly here.

We were SO exhausted on that bumpy and long ride home. We had taken on a hard challenge! Yet, we worked as a team to make it work. I was proud of these two! There is a Pinkberry near where we are staying, and they most definitely earned a Pinkberry!