For Mondays, the kids come and spend a good portion of the morning doing some fitness exercises that are taught by a worker from the Sport's Barn in Chattanooga. After that, the kids play a little more before they go in for math centers. I found out that I will be in charge of a center where the kids do math packets that they do on their own (except with some of the younger kids, I will do counting exercises or another activity). This portion of the day went really smoothly and there were basically no discipline problems. After the math centers, the kids ate lunch, played outside more, and then began the language centers. My job for this center is to stay in the library while the kids work on their summer reading. While this sounds pretty simple, I did have some problems with kids concentrating and staying quiet while they read. Also, some of the kids started arguing with each other and accusing each other of not reading. So, that was a little stressful, but it could have been a lot worse. After that, we just went outside and the kids played for the rest of the afternoon (the kids have quite a bit of down time).
Tuesdays are basically the same as Mondays because the kids do the language and math centers again. However, instead of doing the fitness exercises, the kids worked in a little garden that is located at NNH. It was fun watching them as they got dirty and did something they may have not done before. After that, the kids played outside until the math centers started. Once again, they went fairly smoothly, and I particularly enjoyed working with the youngest group, which had these two really cute girls named Unique and Sandra (she's from Mexico, but can speak fairly good English). Also, the language centers went well, minus one group that got in trouble because they wouldn't sit still and read during the center. While the kids played the rest of the time outside, I was able to talk with Rachel Gammon, the director at NNH, about the charity event that will be coming up this coming Friday.
On Wednesday, we had a fun day at the pool (it is so awesome, because I'll be going to the pool every Wednesday for the rest of the summer). But first, the kids have to do review in the assembly hall before we go to the pool. At around 10 or 10:30 am we broke up into bus assignment groups and we headed to the Booker T. pool. For the rest of the day, I just sat around the pool and got in occasionally when I was too hot or when some of the kids lured me to jump in. After we got back to NNH though, we watched The Little Mermaid, which was quite entertaining.
On Thursday, we had planned to go to Coolidge Park, but we ended up not going because we thought it was going to rain (although it didn't). So, the kids played outside during the morning. But thankfully, I was able to do some interviews with 3 of the staff, which took up a some time. I not only enjoyed hearing about people's experiences at NNH, but I enjoyed hearing the different perspectives people had. After lunch, the kids came in to do an “international study” where the kids went around to different centers to learn about travelling. Normally, there will be an international person coming in and speaking about their experiences with living in a different country, but we didn’t this week. I was in a center with a girl named Erin and we watched the kids while the went on the internet and looked up how they might get to a particular location and how they would travel once they got there.
On Friday, we had what we call "academies," where the kids learn about different things/hobbies. This week, we had three groups. One group learned about saving, investing, donating, and spending from a group of people that came from an investment firm. Another group did crafts and the other group learned the basics of Spanish (I was in this group). After doing that, we gathered the kids and headed to Coolidge Park, where the kids played around most of the afternoon. A group of us also ended up going across the walking bridge and most of the kids also got slushies. Unfortunately, because it was a little chilly on Friday, the kids didn't get to go in the water fountain, so they had to make do just playing around (I was even pulled into doing a few cartwheels, which I'm pretty proud of). Then, we headed back to NNH and I supervised a group of kids who had started a "drama club" (which is more like learning interpretive/inspirational dances). That is basically what I did for the rest of the day.
Overall, I would say that this week has been a successful week. Although there were a few challenges, I learned that, while some of the kids come from broken homes or homes where they may not get enough attention, the kids are great kids with a lot of potential. Being at NNH has given me a lot of respect for those who work there and it has also made me want to volunteer there beyond the summer. Also, it has surprised me how much I've enjoyed working with children. It is kind of funny that I'm working with kids on my internship, because ever since I knew about the internship, I swore that I wouldn't work with children or research anything related to education. I guess God had a different idea.
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