The ride to Pumula was a bumpy one for Sarah and Grace, having to wake up early in the morning and catch a kombi with conductors yelling ’Pumula, Pumula ‘. They were meeting the rest of the team in Pumula, at a pre-school called Everlasting Joy. The day’s lesson was going to take a different spin as they were teaching young children, ages ranging from tender three to six. This meant that when the team was presenting their lesson they had to bear this fact in mind.
The lesson was focused on improving the visual skill of the kids and to also familiarize them with the letters of the alphabet and engage them in a lot of drawing and outdoor activities. First and foremost the team introduced themselves to the children and the children just could not stop casting goggle eyes at them. This could have been that some of the children had never seen white people before or they were just overwhelmed and were still nervous about what was going to happen.
We started by having an energizer with the children just to liven their mood and to make them interested because this team was not the teachers they are used to. The team opted to have the kids name shapes they know using their hands and also draw them on charts using coloured pencils and it was successful. For some kids it was something that seemed humorous and for some it was strange because they had never done it before.
Moving on we taught the kids colours such as red, blue, green just to mention but a few. The loveliest time the team had was when we taught the kids the rainbow song which the kids hummed whey they had gotten the hang of it. The kids did a lot of group work which they were really enthusiastic about . The team was pleased because the children were definitely engaged and had opened up to them.
They had games outdoors and they played a lot with the children and some of the pre-school teachers partook in this and it made thewhole expereience memorable as it was not only fun for the kids but the volunteers as well.
Written by ICS in-country volunteer Thinathea Moyo
