With almost a month under our belts, my roommate, Kerri, and I have been working hard to successfully run the after school care in Lansing. Each day we have almost 30 students ranging from kindergarten to sixth grade. The students come to the Bread House facility straight from school (all of the students come from Cole Academy in Lansing, a charter school). We begin each day with a snack and a "Do Now" activity to get them thinking. They are able to answer the daily prompt either by writing a response or drawing a response, since several of the students are young kindergarteners. After snack, the students are able to break up into different groups. We have homework help with tutors who have volunteered as mentors, computer stations with a "kidzui" program students can play age appropriate computer games , fun crafts/ science experiments and gym time. I am in charge of taking the children to gym for about 30 minutes each day. It has been a wonderful learning experience seeing what works and what does not work. Similar to out readings about the challenges of lesson planning, I have learned to be flexible and adapt to the needs of the students. Since I am the activities coordinator in addition to tutoring, I have made several changes in the gym noticing that grade levels may need to be separated, and that games need to be announced prior to going up to the gym or the students will be too wild! I learned very quickly that there needed to be more order in the gym, and it was my job to figure out how to make the changes.
Besides the gym time, I have been really enjoying helping students with various homework questions and needs. I have helped model reading and reading comprehension, because that has seemed to be where students are struggling the most, no matter what subject (even math word problems,etc.)
Each day has new challenges, but that is why I love it. This experience will definitely help prepare me to be the teacher I strive to be, especially working within such an urban student population. The kids are tough, but I realize this is the experience I need, since I have only worked in more suburban school environments.
If anyone is interested in starting to volunteer, we would love to have you! Please let me know!
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