A School Story

Last Monday we began something new for the King's Children's home... And something quite new for ourselves. We started a preschool for the children who are too young to go to school yet. We knew that the kids who haven't had any schooling were let to run around all day long, doing just as they pleased. This made us a bit nervous because we were not sure how they would handle sitting down every morning and learning. But we also knew that this is just what the kids needed, because it will give them a much needed boost for when they start their real school one day. So we plowed forward.

We decided to have the preschool start at 9 am and end at 11 am. Just a mere two hours to let the kids start to feel structure and get a taste of what real school would be like. It would also only be Monday through Thursday, giving both us and the kids Friday off. We decided to let two teachers trade out with the other two teachers every other day, with one teacher remaining all throughout the week. I was excited about this opportunity (as my major is Elementary Education), so I volunteered to stay every day.

Next, we had to come up with a daily schedule. We decided to have just about the same thing every day, so that the kids will feel the structure of school and will be comfortable with this new arrangement. We start off every day with a memory verse, that we usually add motions to to make it more exciting. Next we have a Bible story, followed by prayer. Motion songs follow this, including some of the kids favorites which are: If You're Happy and You Know It, Let Us Come Together, Peace Like a River, and Who Has Come to Preschool. The last song is the most exciting for them because in the song each child is named and pointed at, which of course brings smiles and embarrassed, but happy, looks. Most of the other songs they are still trying to learn, so we are just leading them while they stare at us wide eyed and with mouths agape. Next comes the day and the weather outside, and then a story, which of course is always read with much enthusiasm as to keep the students' attention. After that comes working with numbers, and then working with letters, another story in there, and we finish with an art project.

The preschool has been going fairly well, so far. We have had some rough patches where no one wants to sit still and participate, or we can't find them, or they won't come out from under the table. But for the most part, it goes along pretty smoothly. They seem to be very excited to learn and to get individualized attention, which they may not always get.

Some special points of interest that have happened in the preschool so far are as follows. One little boy, who we thought for the longest time to be named "Urban" is actually named "Erwin." This posed a problem because we had been telling him that his name is "Urban" and that his name starts with the letter "U." Now when we go through our alphabet book, he stops at the letter "U" and says that his name starts with that letter. We feel terrible about that one. A fun thing for the kids is when we break out letter tiles and have them find the letters "A" and "B." They really enjoy that and are getting really good at it too. It is definitely exciting to see them learning more, and to come in every day wide eyed and bushy tailed. I feel like we are definitely needed here for that reason. To give the kids a jump start on education and to show them some attention and affection. It has definitely been a learning process for us so far, but it has also definitely been a blessing.

Here are two visitor students; Quincy and Karalee. A brother and sister who came for the day.

Quincy, Karalee, Emmerson, and Jason coloring for art.

Miss Rachael removing a sticker from Erwin's (not Urban's) head.

Quincy, Erwin, Miss Kelsi, Karalee, and Emmerson listening to a lesson.

Miss Karli enthusiastically reading a Dr. Seuss book.

All the kids sorting through letter tiles to find "A" and "B."