Helping Hands

This week in Helping Hands was by far my favorite. I planned and initiated an activity to help develop the children’s basic writing and speaking skills. In this activity they filled out a worksheet that I made. This worksheet asked them about what made them happiest, their favorite animal and color, where they were from, their age, etc.

 

 

 

 The most rewarding moment of my entire semester in this group occurred with this activity. A number of the students wrote that the times in their lives when they were happiest were when they were at OSC.

 

 

 

 

After filling out the sheet they each posed for an individual picture. To the upper and middle class having your picture taken may be something you do every day. However, to these kids it was something they had never done before. They had never had a picture of themselves. They lined up with excitement, each with huge smiles across their faces. We later printed the pictures and pasted them onto their worksheets. They decorated the sheets and brought them home.

 

 

Before the session ended, we had them get into groups and read aloud their sheets to each other.  I was able to see where they needed help and what vocabulary they struggled with most. In this group we deal with the global issue poverty. Through teaching these children English we are opening up doors for them. This base of English will serve as a stepping stone into mastering English which will help them in high school and to get a job when they are older.

SAISA SOCCER

We just came back from our soccer tournament in Nepal. Our trip was filled with hard work and fun! Despite our best efforts, we came in seventh place out of eight teams. However, we fought for our place until the end. We worked collaboratively each through each game as we passed, shot, and blocked. I worked especially well with Michaela and Athena.

 

After the first game we were able to identify our areas of strength and areas of weaknesses. We learned  that our greatest weakness was our finishing. We were able to dribble the ball through defenders and center the ball perfectly. However, once the ball arrived in the center of the field, it was thrown away. We worked on this game after game and still were never able to perform well enough. My strengths and weaknesses changed by the game. However, overall I believe I did extremely well in communicating with my other teammates and dribbling through defenders. I believe my biggest weakness was m y frustration.  My team had countless opportunities to score in which we threw the ball away. It was difficult to not become frustrated during these times of disappointment.

 

We each undertook the challenge of playing on a new field in a new country. The altitude and pollution caused us to have difficulties in breathing and caused us to become tired more quickly. Nepal was also much colder than what we are used to in Sri Lanka. The biggest challenge however was the field. It was extremely wide, creating a whole new way of playing. We had to adjust each play, learn to use the space, and learn to conserve our energy.

Helping Hands

This week in Helping Hands we worked on reinforcing what we had taught on the names of body parts last week and worked on introducing oneself. We brought in a dog and the students identified the different body parts that they had learned the week before.

For example legs, arms, and head. However, they also learned new terms which only applied to animals such as tail and paws. I was amazed by how excited they were to see a dog. The teachers from the local school took pictures of the dogs and were in disbelief with its beauty. This really surprised me because where I am from seeing a golden retriever is very typical and something you see on a daily basis. Therefore, it made me see the difference between the Sri Lankan and American cultures.

 In the second activity, the kids had to introduce themselves, state their age, and name their favorite color. They struggled with sentence structure and confidence. I worked collaboratively with the other group leader to give them more confidence and make them feel comfortable speaking in English. I show commitment to this activity by attending weekly session and through planning activities for each week in my spare time. I hope to continue with this service group until I graduate from OSC.

Helping Hands

This week in helping hands we focused on learning the different parts of the body and on numbers. With my other group leader, I planned and initiated two activities for this week. In the first activity  , we split the children up into groups. Each group had to write different body parts on sticky notes. This taught them how to spell and read the different body parts. Next, one by one they had to stick the correct sticky note on the body part of another group member. The kids found this activity to be very fun and laughed throughout the session.

 Later, we did a more active activity to teach them numbers.  The kids had to run around the field. Then we would yell out a number. Each number had a certain action that they would follow in a group of the number called. For example, when three was yelled, they had to sit in a line of three singing "row, row, row your boat". I believe that this service group has really helped me in developing new skills, in specific my leadership skills. I feel that I have become much more comfortable taking on a leadership role and organizing different activities.

SOCCER SAISA GOALS

Next week my team and I will be going to Nepal for our soccer SAISA tournament. We have all put a lot of work into preparing for this and cannot wait for this amazing experience. The most important factor throughout the tournament will be our ability to work collaboratively as a team. Without this key factor ,no matter the level of fitness or individual talent, we will be defeated. Therefore, my primary goal is to work well and communicate with my teammates throughout the tournament. On our first day we must realize our areas of strength areas of growth both as individuals and as a team. My individual weakness is that I often hesitate and do not make decisions fast enough. This causes the level of my shooting and passing to be lower than it is capable of being. Due to this, my secondary goal will be to make fast decisions. I hope that through this I will make multiple goals for my team. As a team, our biggest weakness is communication. Many people including myself are often open for the ball, however because we don't communicate this to the other player, and therefore do not have the best plays possible. I believe that communication would bring our team playing to a whole new level.

Coast to Coast Week Without Walls

For my week without walls trip I chose to go on the biking trip to Arugam Bay. This trip was an amazing adventure and one of the most challenging weeks of my life. We began our week with a multiple hour bus ride to our first hotel. We stopped half way through to practice our cycling.

The fourth day forced me to undertake new challenges and develop new skills. We rode sixty miles that day. It was by far the longest distance that I had ever cycled. It was extremely difficult and many times I wanted to quit. However, I stuck through it until the very end. This was extremely rewarding. I developed my fitness skills through this exercise. My legs were sore each day of the trip. However, each day we learned to push ourselves even harder in order to reach our destination. 

One of the many fun activities we did was going to the elephant orphanage. This is a very famous site. We learned about why the elephants were there and the goals of the orphanage. I believe that it is a great project and responsible for changing the lives of many elephants.

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One day of the trip the teachers asked for volunteers to go to a local school to help the children with bike safety. I volunteered along with three other OSC students. The teachers taught us how to assemble and place the lights onto the front and backs of the bikes. The children were grateful for our help. Though we only made a small contribution, the kids will have a safer ride to and from school each day. This activity dealt with an issue of global importance; poverty. It was very difficult to only do this much for the students. Many of the student had broken breaks and handle bars.It made us all think about how fortunate we are. But what we thought about most is how we could do more or how we could use what we learned that day to improve our own community service groups at OSC.

The picture below is from an extremely windy day where we biked 50km. On this day collaborating with other cyclists was key. We created a system that lessened the effects of the wind. We would cycle in a lie so that only the first person would receive the obstacle of the wind. We chose the strongest cyclist to take this role.

On the second to last day we made lunch as a group. We collaborated together while planning and initiating the meal making process. I was assigned the job of gutting the prawns. This was a disgusting and unpleasant job. However, the prawns were the center of our meal so we all had to do our part.We all worked together throughout the meal serving process to create an organized way of distributing the food fairly.At the end of the meal we ensured that we left a clean area behind us. The food was surprisingly good!

Helping Hands

This week in Helping Hands we taught the children colors. We did this through to activities. The first activity was reading the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar to the children. As we read the book aloud, we had the children name the colors and the different foods they saw.

 

 For the second activity, the children colored in a caterpillar and pasted it on a colored sheet of paper. Each section of the caterpillar was labeled with the name of a color. The children had to apply what they learned about colors from the book and color in the directed color. I was surprised by just how much the students enjoyed this activity.

For this weeks session I had to plan and initiate the activities. Throughout the week before I had to think about a fun and effective way to teach the kids colors. I try to find a new theme each week to focus on. Each week I will also try to reinforce the lesson from the week before. Being a leader in this service group helps me develop new skills. I have greatly developed my skills in organization. Before each session I must ensure that I have a clear planned out lesson. I must have all my ideas and materials ready for each session.