Aldea Infantil: El Día de Padres

June 15
Another week has gone by at the Aldea, much faster than the previous week. I feel like I'm getting into the swing things although every day is still an absolute adventure. Speaking of adventures, this week we celebrated 'El Día de Padres' with the Aldea, in which quite of the few kids either sang, danced, or even recited poetry. Afterwards the entire populace of the Aldea began to dance. It was admittedly rather awkward for me at first but once I got over that it was an absolute blast to dance with everyone. While dancing, my camera quickly found itself being passed around the room and I ended up with a bunch of priceless photos like the two above. The boy with the closeup shot is Miguel. Miguel is a special needs child who absolutely love to play basketball, dance, and just talk. He's a very loving individual who really just needs someone to spend time with. The same could be said however of just about every kid here. The two boys in the other picture are Jean Pierre (in the purple) and Juan Carlos (in the red). Both of them are very helpful, intelligent, hardworking, caring individuals who are so much fun to talk or play any kind of game with. I know in North America these boys would be guaranteed to have a bright future but  I'm concerned that they may not have the resources to do the things they are capable of given their current situations. There's so many ways these kids could be helped, I just hope to do some good for these goods, and teach them they can do anything if they just work at it hard enough. Anyhow I'm loving it here and am looking forward to week 3 immensely! Chao
-Brett

El Bichito: Week of June 10th

Week of June 10^th

Brennan Howick and Dane Smart 

For this week we decided to focus the theme on creating a future for ourselves.  It was a goal of ours to engage the children in thinking their career path, future family life, and goals on how they will achieve these aspirations.  We wanted to emphasis self empowerment and self worth, in helping them to see that they can accomplish whatever they put their mind to.  

In one activity we wrote a large list of occupations on the board and had the children write down the top three they were most interested in.  After they did so we discussed how they would obtain this profession.  They were then instructed to choose their top choice and draw themselves performing their profession in the future.  The children said they enjoyed envisioning themselves as “big people with real jobs.”

The next activity was focused around visualizing their future family and what that entails.  Out of craft paper we made blank cards and distributed them to the children. Once each child had a card, we instructed them to, first, draw each member of their future family, second, list 5 characteristics they wanted their future family to have, and third, was to list 5 characteristics they didn’t want their future family to have.  I.e., no fighting, unhealthy conflicts, divorce, etc (Attached is a photo of Brennan with Jose Luis and Marcos with their completed cards about their future families).

On Wednesday we talked about our future plans for life.  A discussion was held about what goals are and the importance of creating and achieving them.  We as well as each child set a long term goal that we plan to accomplish in the future. We then set a short term goal that would help us achieve our long term goal.  It was great to see the similarities between the goals that were set and the children’s potential professions they had chosen a few days prior.  It showed that the children saw the correlation between having a profession and the goals that lead to it. 

For a final activity we talked about the importance of community and proceeded to set a community goal.  To do this, we presented a picture to the children that illustrated an important issue.  The picture was a man dropping his trash on the street.  Littering is prevalent in Cajamarca, and we felt it important to discuss our role in keeping our communities clean for future generations.  For this activity we utilized a method taught to us by Eagle Condor called FAMA, in which a picture is displayed and the participants are asked to identify Facts of the photo, Associations to their own life, the Meaning of what is happening, and Actions they can take to solve the problem. 

We have already seen an impact by using this teaching method, as earlier in the week a child had taken a marker and written a wall close to the facility.  Without being prompted, we observed another child cleaning the marker off the wall.  We were so happy to see this application of learning and awarded the boy with a Jolly Rancher candy (Included is a picture of Dane rewarding him for this good deed). Throughout our time here we wanted to emphasis the use of positive reinforcement to obtain better behaviors.  We look forward to seeing more growth out of children with so much potential.

Aldea Infantil: Shoots and ladders

A June 9 post from Megan, an intern at Aldea Infantil:

This week was by far one of the best I have ever experienced in my life.  A particular experience that stood out to me was working with my cute friend Alex.  Alex is four years old and loves to come over and play shoots and ladders.  (It really should only be called Ladders when we play because shoots aren't an option for him.)  While we were playing I noticed that Alex was a really good counter, but didn't actually recognize the number symbols. He was clearly a very intelligent kid so I knew that this would be something he could learn quickly.  I made some flashcards for him the next day and he was pretty excited to work on them.  It was a bit of a struggle because he would try and memorize the order and just guess, but with lots of shuffling we finally got them and we were both super excited.  I'm excited to work with the other kids his name and experience the same thing.  I'm working on a lot of fun games to play with the other 6 four year olds.  

Aldea Infantil: Brett's first post

June 9
Hey! My name's Brett and this is my first blog post. This little guy here is Jose Angel, he's 4 year's old and he is absolutely adorable. In this picture we are help helping him to do his do his homework which consists of exercises like coloring within the lines and tracing along various patterns of dotted lines. We ended up having to help quite a few of these little guys do their homework, which was no small task. Getting four-year-olds to sit down and focus for an hour or more has never been an easy task. The kids were great though and in the end everything worked out after much convincing and reinforcement. The first week at the Aldea has been a lot like this experience with these little guys, what at first seems impossible suddenly becomes that much more manageable when you put your shoulder to the wheel and start working. Nothing here is particularly easy, but the chance to maybe change the course of a life here makes it worth all the while. 

El Bichito: Week 4

Week 4- Week of May 27th 

Last week we focused on basic reading and writing, but we were worried that some of the children may not have fully comprehended what they were reading.  We decided to go more in depth and make this week’s theme writing and reading comprehension. We came up with several activities that would help promote this learning. 

One activity was to increase the children’s vocabulary with words that might be beneficial to them in everyday life.  Such words included grateful, earn, friendship, conserve, honesty, kindness, and loyalty.  We wrote each of the words on the board and worked in teams to figure out the definition. They would write the definition down and then give an example sentence including the word.  We are hopeful the lesson got the children to think about new words, their meanings, and how to use them to resolve conflicts. 

Another group lesson focused on reading comprehension and following directions.  We created a treasure hunt and told them they were going to be pirates for a day.  We gave them the first clue.  It was written on a 3 by 5 card and had a sentence which they need to read and understand the instruction.  They then had to figure out where the clue was leading them and locate the next clue.  Each cards instruction was different from the last to exercise their thinking.  We gave hints, directions, and even had them count their paces to the next clue.  They hunted all over the building and surrounding property.

We included a picture of our participation rewards program that we implemented in week one.  We have started to see the positive impact this has had on the children, and their motivation to learn.  You can see the draw it has on the children from the picture as they receive their daily participation sticker.  It has amazed us to how such a small reward can really foster learning.  The children can receive one sticker a day if they participate in the activity, complete homework at facility, or are engaged in reading a book at the facility. 

Progression in reading has maintained its consistency and has been a joy to see.  Included is a picture of two of our star reading students Flor and Ina.  This picture was taken after Flor had finished a book and subsequently written a book report on it.  Her report joined the rest of the book reports on the wall.  We felt we had an extremely productive week and hope to foster more learning in the coming week.

Dane Smart

Brennan Howick

El Bichito: Week 5

Week 5:Week of June 3^rd

By Brennan Howick and Dane Smart   

            This week we wanted to give an added focus on hygiene.  We reviewed what past interns had taught, and reemphasized the need of constant personal care.  One exercise we did focused on the importance on hand washing.  We talked about the need to wash hands before each meal.  We listed the steps on the board and then each child practiced in the sink.  From that lesson on we encourage and instruct them to wash up before they eat.

We also talked about the need to shower each day and washing our entire bodies to keep ourselves clean and maintain health.  We then discussed the importance of eating healthy foods, what these foods are, as well as reviewing the food pyramid. The kids put food items in each category, and servings required per day for each category.  We discussed what a balanced diet is, and the presence of these in our diet helps us grow and keeps us healthy.  Finally, we talked about the steps to brush our teeth.  They learned about what should be used, how often, and the proper technique to brush. 

            

As part of our participation, homework, and reading rewards program we help a movie day at El Bichito (some pictures of the rewards program chart and rules are included).  The idea of the specific movie came from the children frequently talking about superheroes.  We thought we would surprise them and watch the Pixar movie, Megamind.  It was good to emphasize to the children that their hard work does pay off.  They were all very attentive, and enjoyed a movie they had never seen before. 

            

We really felt that this is an ongoing theme to reinforce, and to strive towards being healthy and clean.  We have seen the reoccurrence of these issues and will continue to help solve them.  We had the impression that this was just a review for many of the children but wanted to do our part to encourage them to continue these practices.  It was another fun theme and another fun week at El Bichito!

Aldea Infantil: New interns

June 9
The first several days at the Aldea have been quite an experience to say the least! With so many things to take in (trying to learn Spanish, eating new food, learning names, etc.) Brett, Megan and I have been able to find a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction in the work so far. We've spent a lot of time with some of the younger children at the Aldea. Trying to teach things such as math, reading, and manners definitely takes a lot of patience, but it's also very rewarding. 

One experience that stands out for me happened the other day when we were outside playing basketball. I found myself at at one hoop with a couple of special needs children, Luzmila and Miguel, who are both about 14 years old. They decided on team names (Lions & Cobras) and then started to take turns shooting underhand shots on the net. They shot really well, and it was awesome to see their faces light up when they made it! They shared the ball and both enjoyed going against each other. They asked me to play with them again the next day, which I did, and it was just as fun. 

It has been a wonderful experience at the Aldea Infantil and I look forward to getting to know many others over the next couple of months.

Justin Schow