Hi everyone,
The camp turned out to be more fun than I thought. And I even brought back souvenir from the camp; a swollen voice box. I tried to cure myself with panadols, honey and coconut. I must have my voice coz thesis presentation is on Wednesday. :”(
I flopped onto my bed as soon as I reached home and fainted for a few hours. I even miss the hall where I slept with a few other facilitators at night. In the beginning, all 3 fans were switched on, then when morning approached, none of the fans was on. LOL. we nearly froze to death. I only had my bumble bee to hug. The rest had sweaters and blanket. Actually, the place which the school teachers prepared for us was very cozy and comfortable. But when I saw big red giant ants attacked my boiler, pants, bee and toes, I changed my mind.
Then, the first activity was the registration. As kristy, syarifah and kak Harrison were the ones in charge only at the registration table, I did not want to disturb them. So, I went to the hall but there were already too many people decorating the board. Hmmm……in the end I went to monitor the students’ line and guided them to move 2 by 2 to write their names and take files.
Upon seeing the students were becoming more and more noisy, I asked Farhana if we should teach them to sing first. Hehehehe….so I started the singing session and later christine and puy yih took over coz I didn’t want to sing with the mic. Don’t want to scare the students with my voice and most of all, don’t want the sky to rain.
Errr…I think I’ll just cut out some parts of the events…like when I go changed baju and etc. okay, later we all were put into groups with the kids. Me, wati and maziana were mother froggies taking care of 10 baby froggies. The mention of it makes me miss them. I hate myself for shouting at them but it was inevitable at times. There are friends who said I was garang. J I don’t mind though. I find it hilarious coz I think the only asset I have is my thunderous voice. Therefore, I did not want to waste it. But the consequence I was mahal; painful throat. Then, marsha and I thought of the method that Miss shanti has taught us in class. The raising up your hands and keep quiet, method. I tried that in the canteen but the kids were still talking even when their hands were up. LOL
After that, we had to implement the games separately but simultaneously. Our teaching class was at the Kemahiran Hidup room. How nice! I did not have one in my former school. Well, the toilets in my former school were also very dirty! We asked the kids for their names again and then elected 2 leaders. The leaders were supposed to take care of their own group members. Like when we had to gather at some particular place, the leaders had to make sure everyone was there or when in the hall, they have to make sure the rest didn’t make noise.
Frankly, we had no big problems with the kids. They were all very obedient towards the end of the camp. LOL. But there was one boy who can be considered the “monkey” of the class. He’s more active and mischevious but I think, later was tamed down by us. He turned out to be the most quiet one and I also noticed the rest of the boys didn’t mix with him. I asked him what was wrong but he replied he’s okay. I think the most effective games were Win, Lose or Draw, and Great Minds Don’t Think Alike (excuse me if I get the name wrong). For the win, lose or draw, I think it was the time when the kids had to push themselves to the extent until they can remember the correct words. They tried very hard to guess the correct similes. The problem was they knew the Malay version of the correct words but found it so hard to translate them to English. Then, the challenge was even greater after the mother froggies told them that the loser group will kena “conteng” on the face by the group that won. The last ten minutes, the mother froggies joined in the fun and were the ones who drew and the kids guessed. It was so much fun, seeing the kids cracked their heads to think and at one moment, the “monkey boy” gave up and talked in gibberish. All of us burst out laughing. ROTFLOL…
The kids were able to show off individual talent when they played Great minds don’t think alike. As this was the last game which replaced Pyramid game, they knew they had to compete with each other to get the most stars. There was a tie, and we gave them another alphabet P. One of them wrote “Perancis” for country. LOL But all in all, they all did very well as they could come out with many different words for every category which surprised us.
The BINGO game, was the most funny game. I think we were too ambitious to think that it could be played as well as we played in class. First of all, the kids had no idea what was past tense and when they called out the words, they even pronounced the –ed. So it became “yell-led”, “comb-bed”, “scrub-bed”. And so that was how we named the “monkey boy”, “yell-led” as most of the altered words came from him. And for the Word-stem game, they had difficulty understanding how the game went. The froggies joined the “smart” cows for this game.J The results were not very encouraging, they could derive irrelevant words like “basket” or “chiken” from the word “chicken”.
My game, Okapi was the last game they played that night. I have a few comments but it think I shall save it for post-mortem later. So, that night, the facilitators were overjoyed that takda post-mortem and we could retire early. One disadvantage of sleeping in the hall was we could listen to every people who walked down the stairs or walked past the hall and gave us a shocking knock on the door. And I really wonder if the kids got any sleep…they slept around midnight and woke up very early. Even before the facilitators.
We had light exercise in the morning, led by puy yih, norlie and marsha. We wanted to play Simon Says but due to time contraint, we scraped the plan as we had to create a song for our own group. I felt disappointed that my froggies did so well during rehearsals but when the real time came, they made mistakes. This includes drama. The froggies worked so hard…”yell-led” made the cat’s tail with full enthuciasm and the rest encouraged one another to do their best. I was so touched and surprised by the way they shown their maturity at times. Some were willing to switch roles because the other person could not manage his or her own lines. They reminded each other not to repeat the same mistakes done in rehearsal when in stage. But in the end also, they didn’t do well coz they didn’t make use of the mic. Half wanted the mic and half were against it. Nvm, they got the consolation prize but “yell-led” asked “kenapa kecik aje”. I replied sadly “nvm, u all have done ur best and there will be other chances”.
We bid farewell to them later in the afternoon. I left with a heavy heart. Okay, lessons learnt…do not push ur students, pour out more patience and understanding, simplify tough lessons and do not lokek praises. I think it is really a powerful tool to boost the kids’ self-esteem. After all, they are only kids and I kept forgetting about that. Thank you and sorry if my report is too long. I just couldn’t stop writing and it reminds me of the sweet memories I had in the camp. It made me forget about thesis for 2 days. :D