The Culminating Blog

This project came with a lot of mixed emotions: ecstatic, joyful, frustration, relief, annoyance, bitterness, and more! However, the whole experience has been a great learning experience and I'm glad I had the opportunity to do this project. I learned a lot about myself and child development. Although I couldn't help out in the hospital, I did academic development at a local elementary school, Ponderosa Elementary. I helped teach in a kindergarden class. I tried several ways to teach the children, but the best way was hands on learning. They worked better with hands on learning because when I orally explained the lesson they didn't understood it, and when I demonstrated the lesson without them copying, it took them awhile to understand it because they weren't all paying attention. They got side tracked. I had them do the pre-lesson with me, so they can have muscle memory.When I was teaching the kindergartners, I did the each activity with them, so I can continue to learn with them. I had the students copy what I did before we did a lesson. This helped them with their learning skills and most if not all understood the lesson within minutes. I had to talk in a gentle voice, so the children wouldn't shut down. We worked on letter sounds, letter recognition, sentence starters and conjunctions! I had them read the alphabet everyday, so they can remember how important it is to know you letter recognition and sounds. We would play big bag games, which they chose a bean bag and whichever letter it said, they had to say the sound, what letter it is, and an object starting with the letter. With the advanced group, I made a game, which I gave them two flashcards and they had to make a sentence using the two objects on the flashcards. They were amazing at this! I had to help some of them, but majority of them got it. It was interesting listening to how string their sentences were at such a young age. 

I gained self-relaince, confidence, and resilience. I've always been a timid girl who was always hesitate on everything. I always want everybody's opinion. I usually need guidance to make feel "comfortable", but when I started this problem, I learned how to rely on myself and my instincts. It felt amazing and knowing I made an impact to many young lives. These children believed in me and I believed in them, and that made me strive till the end in this project. I usually talk so fast people don't understand what I'm saying. I don't even know what I'm saying! But when I was teaching the students, I learned how to talk slow, learned how to think before I spoke and learned how to pronounce words. I still have trouble, but it's getting better. After a long day at school, I would go to community service to teach the children and they always put my mood in a good mood. They taught me that there is a brighter side to everything. Even when they were struggling, they never gave up. They encouraged each other to understand the lesson, and I will never forget this lesson. 

There weren't that many challenges along the way besides being patience. I would get frustrated when the students didn't listen to me as I was trying to help them be Pros at their alphabets, but I never showed the frustration. I would just stay quiet for a moment then wait patiently until they are ready to learn. This really helped. They felt bad that I had to wait in the end. Also, I found it difficulty when I had to change up the plans at that moment because we took too long on something or went by quickly over something. This only happened two times. I would either finish teaching the lesson the next week, or have them finish it during play time the next day, and if I went too fast on a lesson, I would call out random objects in the classroom and had them say the letter, letter sound, have them put it in a sentence. They loved it because they made their own sentence on the spot.

This capstone experience has been amazing. I love working with children and I can't wait to work with them in the future. I hope to still volunteer at Ponderosa when I come home from break from college. My mentor and students were awesome and I can actually say they made a positive impact to my life.