Ahh... Spring :)
After learning how the word "not" affects the meaning of the sentence, we spent one day working solely on Not Contractions. The students seemed to catch onto the concept rather quickly, so I introduced other contractions the following lesson. They went on an Easter Egg hunt outside to look for halves of paper eggs. After finding an egg half, the students had to find the matching other half that then showed the contraction for two English words! Once all the Contraction Eggs were reassembled, we studied the words to lean the rule for different contractions. Some of the students began to immediately notice that some contractions, such as "he has" and "he is" have the same contraction -"he's". They were quick to realize they would need to be careful when reading some contractions as there could be two meanings! I applauded the students on looking for the rules and exceptions in the contraction study and then applying the new grammar rules to the other activities during the lesson.
Reassembling Easter Egg Contractions
Normally, Elephant and Piggie don't use contractions, so the kids are helping them out by re-writing their speech bubbles with correct contractions!
Contraction Dominoes and Ice-Cream Matching. My translator, who was helping the girls with the ice-cream matching, came to tell me that they were uncontrollably giggling! When we asked the girls what was so funny they replied, "We don't know! We are just having fun together!" Learning should ALWAYS be this much fun!
In Adult Class, we finished our 20 week series I entitled "Walk Across America." We studied twenty different places around America to learn about American culture and history. I then related most of the lessons to a grammar concept or theme to discuss so we could connect our stationary travel further to English vocabulary and practice. To conclude the series, I brought in a big map of the USA and simply asked the group where they remember "traveling" to and what we learned about each location. With each lesson they remembered, I became more excited as they explained the topic for the students who may have missed that lesson! One adult noticed my excitement and said, "Kendra acts like our review is a hockey game! Look at her cheer for us!" Teaching is an intense sport ;)
Labeling the USA map with our travel lesson locations.
Planning for Teen Class is often the biggest preparation challenge of the week! These students are all at different levels and are busy with many other activities, which makes it hard to know who will be at class each week. Still, these students are teaching me how to become a better teacher as I work with many of them in small groups or as individuals so they are able to study English at their level. Many of my older students are learning how to help translate as some of the younger kids are learning how to confidently ask for help when they don't understand their English Practice Task.
Small Group and Individual Work
Watching the Littles learn little bits of English brings me so much joy! There is so much value in being introduced to other languages at a young age. Even if they cannot speak the words, listening to the repeated English songs and participating in the activities is a critical step for building the confidence to learn another language in the future, as well as gives the Littles a chance to interact with their mothers through the program. One mother told me last week, "My daughter looks forward to English with you all week! You can never leave Letovice - anything you need here we can help you find... a house... husband... whatever you need!" We laughed as I assured the mother I wasn't planning on leaving soon. I am thankful for how God continues to remind me of His purpose for my ministry here and the guidance He has given me to continue to connect with so many people in this city.
These farm animals hide behind the doors and windows so the kids would practice making the animal sounds and open the paper doors to reveal the animal - like a peek-a-boo book!
In a lesson I call "Hop Hop!," we put some little plastic balls on the parachute to watch them bounce up and down. One toddler went over to the toy bin and found a little plastic frog that he threw onto the parachute saying "Froggy hops too!" He was giggling the whole activity as he tried to catch the frog on the parachute that would then be lifted away in another bounce!
The Littles made bouncy frogs during our craft-time and enjoyed lifting the little frogs up and dropping them on the table to watch them bobble! Goggly eyes on the frogs made the activity even more exciting. One toddler decided to make her bobble frog a rainbow to hide under.
The warm spring weather has many benefits, including the use of the backyard during Letovice Club! We have been enjoying running around on the grass in mini-soccer competitions, and the kids are thrilled to be biking and skateboarding to club again. With the boarders of club extending outdoors, it doesn't feel so crowded, but there are still on average between 50-60 kids at each club meeting in Letovice! Just like the new change in weather, we have some new changes in youth club also as one of our Elim co-workers will be continuing with a different job in a city 2.5 hours away. We are really thankful for all his help these past years, and very excited for the opportunity for many of our half-leaders (teen volunteers) to step into a bigger leadership role at club! Please continue to pray for our ministry through the Kid's Clubs during these changes and as we look for more volunteers to help.
Our new blow-up soccer field is getting a lot of use!
I enjoy finding games for the Kid's Bible Class that focus on teamwork as it is a great skill for these students to practice as they will be competing in a Bible Competition together at the beginning of May. In this activity, they are working together to stack the cups in a pyramid using a rubber-band and strings!
Every week, we are jumping back and forth as we switch between Boskovice and Letovice for youth group. This way, we can reach many of the younger youth kids who attend our Kid's Clubs during the week through the youth group program and games. For a while, we were missing a worship team, but we began building a group and have been consistently meeting before youth group in Letovice to practice, pray, and then sing. A few weeks ago, one of the worship team members suggested we try worship in Boskovice. I didn't know how it would work since the space is bigger, we don't have the music books in Boskovice, and we were lacking all instruments. Still, we prayed about it and began asking the team how we could bring worship to youth group in Boskovice. One youth student said she could bring a keyboard for us to use, we printed the songs in advance, and suddenly we had more people on the worship team than we ever had before for the premiere of worship at youth group in Boskovice! Praise God for these students and their vision to worship Him through song in both youth group locations!
