SLP Diaries - Part 3

Today was the third session of the department of English's service learning program. This week, we decided to split the children in groups based on their age. There were 11 of us, we split into pairs (One team of three). 

I was handling the second graders today. I have one main observation to put on record. Those kids were so so so energetic. My friend and I sat them all in a circle and started reading to them. I read to them in English first and then he told them the same tale in Tamil. The kids were sitting quietly at first. I had the genius idea to let them dance for a minute (the story had dancing in it). I admit, I didn't think it through. They shot up and that was the end of order. It was hard to settle them back in their circle. 

Then came the stickers. We had start stickers to give the children when they answered a question right. The original plan was to get golden stickers, but I could only get multi-colored ones. When I was handing out stickers, the kids were jumping and crawling onto me, asking me for different colors. Another thing was that those stickers didn't stick to their hands - which was where they wanted me to put them. (Last week, we used sticky notes, but thought we'd try without them this week). 

When my friend was telling stories, the kids huddled up really close to us, almost climbing on our laps and poking us. My group managed to make it through without any injuries (to the children). 

Then came the activity. The game we planned for the day was story expansion - where we sit in a circle, one person says a sentence and the next person continues into a story. We soon realized that this activity wasn't suitable for second graders. When I began the story, the children began repeating the story that we just told them.