English Class - Level 1
It should be stated that after trying a handful of times for a normal picture (and failing), the silly picture captures this group more accurately anyway!
We are reaching the end of our theme about the Circus! We have added animals, verbs, items, and people to our circus and the students are diligently practicing their new vocabulary to be able to recall it later. Its funny to see what words have really stuck from these past eight weeks: puddle and booth surprised me as "fan favorite" vocabulary words in these classes! Comically, for one of the trickier words we were learning, a couple of the students started saying "listen!" when I showed them the vocabulary card. I realized I had been reminding them to listen how to I say the tricky word that they thought the vocabulary word was "listen"! At least we were still learning some new English terms.
It is always fun for me to watch friends interact with each other at this age. There are two best friends and what one forgets in English, the other remembers. They are great at pushing each other towards a goal. Two other friends - one is quiet and the other incredibly outgoing, and yet they are drawn to each other like a moth to light. A couple girls - the tallest and shortest in the class, but both the sweetest, meek personalities. And then I have the twins, who couldn't be more different and are thriving meeting new friends in the class while still encouraging each other. It is so fun for me to get to know these kids and see their friendships further develop.
Practicing jumping and saying "fireworks!" for the grand finale at the Circus!
English Class - Level 2
Level 2 English Classes finished their theme about Questions after learning about Where, Why, How, and Which. We practiced the questions withe various games, and the using the vocabulary when writing to their American PenPals. The students are getting excited for me to deliver their letters (after working on them for many, many weeks!). One of my students said, "I don't want you to go to America, but I REALLY can't wait to get a letter back from my PenPal. I'm so excited!"
We have been reading more informational books about animals, and also interrupted the animals books with one about occupations. After working together to read and translate the book, the students are then responsible for writing a follow-up in their notebooks about the book. After finishing the book on occupations, I asked the students to write what they would like to be when they grow up. I loved all their answers, especially, "I want to be a mom." "I want to be an Elim worker." "I want to be a good person." Then there were the more traditional answers along with one student who wants to be a lawyer! After reading the next book about water animals, I prompted the students to write in their notebook, "In the ocean, I see..." One student wrote, "In the ocean, I see water." I said, "I was thinking more of living things in the water." She replied, "That's not what was written on the board prompt." After reading a book about where animals live, I prompted the students to write, "[Animal] lives in [place]," encouraging them to only pick an animal that they are sure of where they live. One student wrote, "Bacteria live everywhere." Yes, both of these responses are from the 10-year-old want-to-be lawyer. Watch out world!
I told my students on one writing prompt to think of adjectives to put in front of their animals to make their writing richer. One of my students said was writing about a snake and decided to use "jumping" to describe the snake (because it was the only describing word he could think of!). Well, after sharing how freighting it would be to see a jumping snake, all the little boys had written "jumping snakes!" in their notebooks to "scare" me when I read through their writing prompts! I enjoy their humor, and I'm grateful I have yet to encounter a jumping snake.
After finishing our theme about Questions, I have introduced a quick three-week theme about Holidays! We will be looking at Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas before we break until the new year. This past week, we learned Halloween vocabulary. The students enjoyed learning a poem about pumpkins and practiced trading candies while dressed up in different costumes. In both classes, the kids asked if I went trick-or-treating as a child. It was fun for me to share some memories with the classes - that Halloween was more about spending time with friends and visiting family (...I scare way too easy in any kind of "horror" situation anyway), and when I was in high-school how we would use Halloween to collect food from homes in my hometown for a Food Drive. Sharing with these students who only hear about Halloween from school textbooks and teachers that there can be other focuses than just being "scary" brought some light to a usually really dark holiday.
Homeschool English Class
Our theme about the families who lived in one home continues in the Homeschool Group. It is fun to watch them make connections between the families and applying it to the knowledge that they already know. They are becoming more comfortable in acting out the family scenarios and trying to use what English they can to create a short scene. Since the kids are older now and most of them only meeting for English one day a week, I decided to review basic vocabulary for accuracy and fluency growth. The kids are enjoying the challenge to try to recall a wide mix of vocabulary words and are learning a lot through these repetition activities. It is my hope that they will gain even more confidence as they become quicker recognizing the vocabulary words and using the terms they know in conversation.
One of our favorite activities in this group is Sentence Trains. We take the little train pieces from a board game and the students link together pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and clauses. They get to add onto other sentences to use up their cards, but when they place a "train station" at the end of the sentence, no one else can play off the sentence as they try to block their opponents from using the rest of their cards; however, each student only has three stations, so they have to use the stations wisely!
Little Linguists
This toddler group keeps growing, and I love it! Our record this year so far is 13 toddlers, and there were still more planning to come who couldn't make it in the end. I am honored to be able to share time with these moms and toddlers and love to facilitate an excitement of learning.
In October, we had themes about Trains, Leaves, Spiders, Letters, and Dinosaurs. I try to create activities that parents are able to easily replicate at home to provide some more tools for these young parents. One mom told me that she was babysitting her nieces and nephews over the weekend, and she pulled out a blanket, collected some leaves, and have the kids parachute the leaves in the air to fall all around them! She thanked me for sharing the game with her and her toddler the week before at Little Linguists because she said it kept her nieces and nephews entertained for over a half hour!
As the toddlers become familiar with each other and are learning names, they are also starting to make some close friends. It is encouraging to watch as they slowly take further steps away from mom and join their new friends in activities. When their new friends come to the door, they race over to happily greet them. These toddlers are also still requesting songs we learned back in September, and we all agree that the Tuesday morning goes by really quickly!
I am always thinking of new ways to embellish on a theme through play. Even after finishing a theme, I remember there were more activities I wanted to share with the kids, but finding the right balance of new and familiar activities is also key for this age. It is also so important for me to get to know the children so I can learn their likes and skills. One new little toddler is all about the balls, and this little athlete is already running! I have a couple little boys who love the songs, but one will dance along and another mesmerizingly watches as I sing and show the actions. There are a couple little girls who will say "again! again!" until we have sung a 10 second song for 15 minutes. Seeing them each grow in their own way is one of my greatest joys each week!
Kid's Club - Letovice
Hanging out with these kids in Letovice each week always brings a lot of activity! The previous couple years, we saw more older club kids coming to the kid's club, and this year, we are excited to have a group of young boys who are regularly coming. They are bringing more friends and love creating new games together. We have introduced games like Charades, Hide-and-Seek, Fort building, and Dodgeball. With the Rock Climbing Wall also at the youth center, there is always many ways for these kids to unleash their energetic side!
Even with all their energy, I love seeing how creative each of these boys are. We have been making model airplanes, coloring, painting, making diamond art projects, and scratch-off art. The model airplanes were a gift from some American friends and have been a huge hit! My little buddies even liked trying to read the English instructions on the back... though they were also very grateful for the pictures.
Kid's Club - Boskovice
My favorite place in our Club Center in Boskovice is the outside lot. I take my board to club and hang out with the kids outside as they jump tricks on the ramp on their scooters. I just loop around them on the board, sometimes taking videos as they like to see how they manage a new skill, and encouraging them in their talents. I also find it is easier to connect with the kids if I am in the middle with them, not just sitting and watching from the sides, but rolling around the outside lot as they are.
This little sibling of some of our club kids came along one day and loved my board! We spent a lot of time just balancing and slowly moving. The look just wasn't complete without my snapback! He had the most fun hanging out and ambitiously trying a new skill.
Many of our youth kids are now in high school and some in boarding high school which can make it hard to visit Kid's Clubs during the week. However, their dedication to Friday evening youth groups is so fun to see! Most of these kids have been friends since they were little and attending clubs together and youth group is the perfect place to continue these deep friendships.
A couple weeks ago, I taught the program at youth group. Due to some illnesses of other leaders, I volunteered to teach the program the evening before and asked God to give me an idea. Within minutes, it all came together, and I know it had to be what God wanted to share that evening since it was so good and didn't take much planning on my end. I remembered the Americans had left some ingredients to make S'mores after LetFest, and I had been meaning to suggest using it for youth group one evening. I thought I could use the S'more to represent something or to share a story from the Bible, and God did all the rest. It came to me to share that the S'more represents the trinity. The Graham Cracker representing God the Father - protecting, surrounding, and providing (we talked about how the cracker is kind of like the manna God provided for the Israelites in the desert). The Hershey's Chocolate representing Jesus - rich and sweet, and also convicting (when we have too much chocolate, we are convicted or feel ill, and Jesus convicted Pharisees for enforcing rules outside of scripture). Finally, the Marshmallow representing the Holy Spirit - light/airy and sticky (the stickiness remains on our fingers even after the S'more is consumed like the Holy Spirit sticking with us). I also pointed out that the Marshmallow is the only part of the S'more we put into the fire, and the New Testament uses fire as a description of the Holy Spirit as well. Three different parts, and one S'more. Maybe not the very best description of the trinity, but definitely a tasty and memorable way to introduce it!
Mission Church
At the very start of the month, I had a wonderful Sunday at Mission Church as four American friends came for a quick visit! It was funny how it worked out because these two couples, though they know each other, hadn't planned a trip together, though somehow it worked out that they dropped in to say hello on the same Sunday! It was a huge encouragement to see them and get to talk with them as all four of these friends are prayerful supporters of the work we are doing in our ministry. We always love when guests come to visit.
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