Monday, December 24, 2007
Our Mini Christmas party!
Playing with some friends in our "play area".
All the kids enjoyed our toys
Habsa helps me around the house, and these are her kids, and nieces & nephews.
We frosted Christmas cookies together-the kids loved that!
Swinging outsideSunday, December 23, 2007
Ezra's Christmas Program at School
Ezra & his friend, Joseph-the 2 blondies!
Outside the door to his classroom
One of his teachers, and you can see his classroom in the background.
The Christmas program consisted of each class singing some songs in French-you can see Ezra in the corner holding the post. He DID NOT want to go up there, but was bribed by mom to have cake and juice afterwards...he ended up mouthing the words of the song!Little Stars Update
I published some pictures of our first few days in "Little Stars". Wow, and whew! That explains in 3 words how it is going! We opened with a bang and after our first day, I think all 3 of us women that work there, looked at each other and thought, "what did we get ourselves into??"
None of us are specifically trained in this area, other than volunteer time, interest and love for kids. Our first day was a bit challenging, the director of the school that we are partnering with gave us his "hardest" kids. I am not sure if it was a challenge to us to see if we would return, or what. We managed to have a fun time and I am pretty sure the kids had a blast. The school sends over one teacher with the kids each time-probably to watch over our curriculum and the kids. She LOVED what we did and kept making comments about the kind of games and crafts we did, and how we interacted with the kids. We hope that we are indirectly doing "teacher training" also. There are a few kids the teachers keep telling us are too stupid to do anything and "just leave them in the corner." Of course, we don't do that. And, I think the teachers are noticing that there is potential in some of the kids to progress.
We finished our first few days each time with a "wow, that went well!" followed by a "whew, I am exhausted!" Not only is working with these kids challenging, but we face other challenges too-trying to talk with them their uneducated, street Arabic dialect, non handicap-accessible rooms, stairs, sand roads, no doors on the kitchen (which is proven to be quite a popular room for the kids, unfortunately), and the art of squatty potties for the kids with physical handicaps.
All in all, though, we are praising the Lord for this opportunity! It is so rewarding for us and we will keep you updated in the future. We have been able to rent some land next door to open up for outdoor activities, we just need to clean it up a bit...hopefully, in the next few weeks we can use it.
None of us are specifically trained in this area, other than volunteer time, interest and love for kids. Our first day was a bit challenging, the director of the school that we are partnering with gave us his "hardest" kids. I am not sure if it was a challenge to us to see if we would return, or what. We managed to have a fun time and I am pretty sure the kids had a blast. The school sends over one teacher with the kids each time-probably to watch over our curriculum and the kids. She LOVED what we did and kept making comments about the kind of games and crafts we did, and how we interacted with the kids. We hope that we are indirectly doing "teacher training" also. There are a few kids the teachers keep telling us are too stupid to do anything and "just leave them in the corner." Of course, we don't do that. And, I think the teachers are noticing that there is potential in some of the kids to progress.
We finished our first few days each time with a "wow, that went well!" followed by a "whew, I am exhausted!" Not only is working with these kids challenging, but we face other challenges too-trying to talk with them their uneducated, street Arabic dialect, non handicap-accessible rooms, stairs, sand roads, no doors on the kitchen (which is proven to be quite a popular room for the kids, unfortunately), and the art of squatty potties for the kids with physical handicaps.
All in all, though, we are praising the Lord for this opportunity! It is so rewarding for us and we will keep you updated in the future. We have been able to rent some land next door to open up for outdoor activities, we just need to clean it up a bit...hopefully, in the next few weeks we can use it.
Here are some pictures from Little Stars!
We made a Christmas tree for craft time!
We play games like tossing bean bags & limbo...
..to "red light, green light."
Here is our craft room, we decorated picture frames and took a polaroid picture of each child.
Starting the frames with the kids.
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