Last day of teaching By: Renata Martin

 

Saturday was our last day of teaching. We all taught our emergency lessons. My emergency lesson was about the solar system and planets. I read the kids “as quick as a cricket” as ive been doing every day. After I finished that book I started another book called planets which as the title says, talks about planets. I read them the whole book and showed them the planets and emphasized that we were the third planet away from the sun. the activity I decided to do with them was read them flashcards. I read them flashcards about each planet and gave them all one. I took the sun card and stood in the middle. i put all the kids in the order of the planets that I gave them and told them to walk around me in a circle like the planets circle the sun. im not sure they completely understood because they all eventually were the same distance away from me just running in a circle but I thought it was cute and maybe they kind of understood so I kept doing it.

After that I let them draw or play with the dragonflies from the day before because I brought them again. I didn’t know how long my emergency lesson would be so I grabbed some paper and crayons and the dragonflies to keep them entertained until the rotation was over. It was really fun and really cute. in my last group, some of the girls asked me for my number and ran around asking the other leaders for their numbers too. After the rotations were all over we gave all the kids hugs and stuff. I started crying because I was really going to miss these kids and some of the kids were crying too and hugging me and giving me kisses. It was adorable and heart wrenching because I was going to miss them and they were going to miss me. I gave my number to more kids and gave lots and lots more hugs to them. I took some pictures with the kids and let one of the kids hold my camera and take pictures for me and take a selfie which was adorable.

After all the kids left we went to the sinks to do our mural. Our plan was to do the mural above the sink so the kids could see it and everyone driving by could see it. Apparently our mural and another groups mural are almost exactly the same and we didn’t know that until the other group passed by our school and stopped and told us they did pretty much the exact same thing that we were doing. It took us a minute to finish the mural but it turned out pretty good and we all put our handprints and our names at the bottom. Some people gathered around to watch us then we left after we were done. I cant wait to go back on Tuesday to say goodbye to them. Its going to be a really hard day for me because ive built such a connection with some of these kids. Its going to be hard to leave them and to say goodbye because I really love them.

One of my teammates said something rude to me during lunch that day (Saturday) and I went outside and put my head down in my lap and just sat there listening to music and when I sat up there was a group of kids around me. They all asked me what was wrong and if I was sad and why I was sad. I told them one of my teammates said something that hurt my feelings so I was sad and crying and wanted to be away from him. All of the kids tried to cheer me up and gave me hugs and told me it was going to be okay. They gave me candy and kisses on my cheek and just sat next to me and tried to make me feel better. That experience really changed me because these kids that I was supposed to be helping were helping me and I thought that was really nice especially because the kids in my own group didn’t come out to check on me. It made me realize I actually made an impact on these children. These kids cared about me and wanted me to feel better and that made me feel so much better and made me feel so loved by these kids I just met a week earlier. Its so admirable for me to watch them be so caring to someone who was supposed to care for them. Its going to be a really hard goodbye tomorrow.