Every Monday, I join Evo to make sports’ offers for children of the Grundschule. We experiment various ball games, balancing exercises, gymnastics and group activities while also giving the children an opportunity to share their ideas and find ways how we can support them better to try them out. Personally, its been an enriching experience for me to work with Evo and I enjoyed the enthousiasm with which children from the Grundschule participated in the sports activities.
On Wednesday mornings, I make sports offer to children of the Mittelstuffe in two groups of about 9-10 children. My intitial sports’ offers were limited to teaching children a variety of skipping and juggling techniques which they could try out either individually, in pairs or as a group. My motivation was to build hand eye coordination, stamina, concentration, flexibility and most importantly making them work together as group. I strongly believe physical education is an excellent way to channelise one’s energy and develop physical capabilties as well as finer qualities. Gradually, I also introduced various other exercises in the form of games where children learnt to observe the movement of the ball, improved their aiming as well as dribling skills. At first I thought it would be difficult for me to ensure that children remained concentrated in the activities, however, I was quite overwhelmed to see the interest with which they participated and their ability to remain focused for a prolonged time.
On Wednesday afternoons, Falko and I take sports lessons for children of the Mittelstufe. The pictures shared on this page are of an activity we planned for children known as the North Pole Expedition. Two teams were formed with the objective of the activity being that children worked together as a group and successfully crossed over all the obstacles and completed the circuit as a team. As an observer, I found it very interesting to see how children strategised together and worked together as a team.
Generally on Wednesdays, we make children do gymnastics and introduce various kinds of team games. Although we have limited time at the sports ground in Luchow, we try to make the best use of all the resources which are available to our disposal and try to introduce various kinds of physical education activities. Its heartening for me to see how some children have developed in confidence over the last 6 months and the enthousiasm with which they partake in the activities.
On Mondays, I make science offers to children of the Mittelstuffe in the Nawi. We have been exploring various experiments on concepts such as sound, light, force, magnetism, elasticity and colour spectrum. Generally, I show them a video to introduce the concept at a very basic level and then we follow the instructions or watch a video on how to do the experiemnt. I try to choose simple science experiments which children themselves can try out, demonstrate it to their friends at the school and eventually take it home. My motivation behind doing these science experiments was to arouse interest in children towards science. I used a particular website called toysfromthrash because I found that the experiements were explained in a simple and fun manner while using reusable objects from the surroundings.
On Fridays, I make an offer to help children improve their typing skills using 10 fingers. More than 20 children actively participate in the lessons and have already made good progress. During freie arbeit, I observed children using two fingers to type on the keyboard. This pushed me to look for a program which would help children master the technique of how to type using 10 fingers. The benefits are not apparent to many children today but I hope their efforts will make them realise its utility in the near future.
