Volunteering At North Elementary And I Am Working Through...

For my service learning I am volunteering at North Elementary and I am working through the Refugee Development Center. The children that I am working with are named Rofaida and Khalid, whose first language is Arabic. The first time I met the two I was very excited to see them and get to know a little bit about them. However, during their snack time when they first came in I noticed that they were very rambunctious and were often yelling at eachother in their native language. I was a little put off by them at first, just because I did not know if they would be able to cooperate or even want to sit down and learn. They were always moving around and trying to get up, which made me nervous. Often times, they would scream at one another and†¦show more content†¦But, when their snack was over, they told me they were very eager to learn and were interested in knowing what they were going to be doing that day. It surprised me that they were very open with me and that their mood comp letely changed when I started teaching them the lesson. I expected them to love hands on projects so they were very excited when I asked them to draw. They loved receiving help and wanted me to help them draw pictures they had a hard time with such as a gorilla and an umbrella. At this point, the two were laughing with each other and looked like they were great friends. Their English was a lot more advanced than I thought it would be and I was excited to see that. There were times that they did not understand what I was saying, but I stayed calm, focused, and showed them that I was there for them. This visit made me wonder how long they had been speaking English and how long they have been in the United States. I also questioned if they would always be this cooperative when they started learning. In the weeks to come, I can imagine exploring the different ways and approaches that will help these children learn. I know that no two children are the same, whether they speak the same la nguage or not, so I am excited to explore them as individuals. At first, the site felt very weird to me. I felt that it was awkwardly placed in Lansing. It is very weird to describe, but I felt that it seemed like it was just randomly