Blog post 5 – Helping Schools Action Project

1.) Where are you with your action?

Volunteering at Ranch Park Elementary is slowly came to a stop, with the completion of the last weeks of helping. Valeriya and I have helped the students for a long duration, since the start of November, and we’ve been able to gain much insight and create a positive impact. In recent days, in the kindergarten class we were ending off Christmas activities and starting on work booklets. We created various funky snow flakes that filled the walls, doors and windows of the classroom. Additionally, sharing the fun fact that every snowflake is different, and the life lesson that everyone is unique. On the other hand, in the New Year we started on different mini books with different themes, like pirates and cowboys. The students read, colored the figures and filled in the blanks. Overall, even after the break this project has been a great success.

<–Example of the booklets, except the words like “treasure” would be blank.

Some of the snowflakes that the students created during their lesson–>

2.) What are some successes that you have had?

Some great successes have come from these past weeks! I mentioned in my last post that the students were starting to warm up to me by asking questions, now some of the children have started to have conversations with me and a friendly attitude towards my presence. For instance, when they work on something and I come to check on them, they start to ramble on about their ideas, or something they find exciting -Though, they don’t speak clearly and sometimes I can’t understand and I nod along and smile. Also, some individuals have asked me to play with them after they were done their work. Overall, I am very glad about this because it was my greatest challenge to get them to speak to me, and I overcame it. It taught me the real-world value of patience, communication and problem-solving skills.

3.) What are some challenges that you have faced? Have you been able to overcome them?

Furthermore, something challenging that I’ve faced in this action is asking students to try. What I mean by this is some kids do tasks really quickly, just to finish and be able to play. I can’t get them to do their work properly, like coloring in the lines, cutting in straight lines or gluing one part of the paper. It’s challenging because it gets really messy and it gets hard to handle their aggravation when I ask them to re-do the task. I am going to overcome them by using tips of talking out feelings, allowing time to cool off and then compromising (1). For example, when a child won’t do their work properly I try to talk to them on why they aren’t taking their time to work, if I can’t resolve it I give them time to have a break. Then, I give them offers, like ‘If you finish carefully, you’ll have more time to play later,’ or ‘finish this and you cand take a break.’

4.) What are you doing next and why?

Sadly, Valeriya and I have already finished our volunteering adventure with Ranch Park Elementary. We plan to imminently further our volunteering with them to continue our learning and creating a positive change in the community, even if we don’t write updates. So far, we’ve helped many students, hopefully took some classroom stress away from teachers, and learned many lessons. Personally, I’ve absorbed the information on how to use proper communication, patience, empathy and decision making skills. Which I now use when I babysit, talk to my younger cousins and when I get into arguments. In summary, this project has impacted others and me in positive ways.

Thank you for reading!

Resources

1. https://boostforkids.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Guiding-Childrens-Behaviour_June-2019.pdf?