The Inordinary Experiences (Day 3) – Zi Huey

The Inordinary Experiences (Day 3) – Zi Huey

Day 3 – Tadika UM (22/5/2015)

            

After spending 2 days at Zoo Negara, our group has decided to do something different after the discussion with our supervisor Dr Zalfa. We had found a kindergarten which is just located in the compound of University of Malaya. I was surprised with its location because I have never thought that University Malaya has its own kindergarten and we could just reach our destination within walking distance.

            We were given the opportunity to spend our time from 8pm to 6pm to interact with the children at Tadika UM. We had prepared some interesting activities to be carried out with the children and we also helped the kindergarten teachers to look after the children when the children were having their break time. 

A group picture before we started our activities.

We reached Tadika UM at 8am and they were having their morning exercise!
So much of cuteness! 

I did have the experience on dealing with primary school kids and I thought dealing with kindergarten’s children would just be something similar. However, it was proven that it wasn’t that easy as I thought. We need to handle the kids with more attention and care, to guide them with more patience because there is a lot of things that they do not know and they are still in the process of learning.

            I was in-charge of handling the 5 years old children with Jiah Yee, Catherine and Enrick. We have planned 3 interesting activities to be done with them and our first activity was the Ice Breaking Game. Our purpose was to introduce ourselves to the children and for us to get to know them faster by letting the children to introduce their names to us. It was quite challenging to calm them down and to explain the game rules to them because they were very active. We asked the little kids to gather themselves into a circle and gave them a colorful highlighter as the object to pass on when the music is played. And when the music stopped, the child who was holding the highlighter would need to introduce him or herself to us. Some of them were really shy and we need to put more attention on them because they could get emotional easily. However, we were glad that the children were very friendly and they started to get closer to us after the ice breaking game.

            

         After knowing each of them, we had a drawing session with the 5 years old kids. We set a theme for them and they were free to draw anything that is related to the theme. And we promised to .reward the winner who has the best drawing with the presents we had prepared. All of them were very excited and it seemed that they really enjoyed the whole process. We managed to get closer to the kids when we taught them how to draw a particular object.

The theme we set is the Birthday theme. Some of them have very good drawing skills indeed!

            

            Our last planned activity was to teach them the famous Japanese art of paper folding, Origami. We taught them how to fold some simple objects, such as butterflies and ships. This activity has brought us a lot of satisfaction, as we managed to teach the children something that they never learnt before. 

It was their lunch time! And we got to help the teachers to prepare their lunch. =)

            

             It was their napping time after the children had their lunch. Our main jobs in the evening were to help the teachers to clean up the playing area and the surroundings of the kindergarten, and also to do some paper work. We even got the chance to help the children to put on their taekwando outfits and watch them performing the martial art’s moves. I was so impressed of their flexibility and cuteness! 

The kids with their “just woke up” faces. 

They are so adorable!

            

          After all our activities had done, that marked the end of our social engagement activities. It was an interesting experience to spend our day with the little children. From this trip to the kindergarten, I realized that it is important for the children to receive the best education and also have a well-balanced childhood, not just focusing on study but playing around is also a very good learning process. It is our responsibilities to be the role models to the children as they were just like a “blank paper”, waiting for us to fill them with colors, to guide them what is right or wrong, to show them the black and white of the world. The young generations are the future leaders of our country, we should to cultivate them by teaching them how to love and how to give help to others without hoping for a reward. I guess those are the lessons I learnt during the whole process of completing the social engagement’s activities. Even though we have completed our 30 hours of social activities, it just marked a beginning and also a platform for us to start our responsibilities to contribute to the society. Thanks again for giving me this opportunity to gain priceless experiences on contributing to the society and to learn lessons that we could not simply just get from the books. 

Hope to see you all again in the near future! =)