Activities 12-10-13

One Friday afternoon I was standing outside of the classrooms.  School was over.  I was getting ready to spin jumpropes when when a student came up to me.  He asked, "Do you have cheese?"  I looked at him confused and said, "The food??? No, I don't have cheese."  Then the student drew squares on the ground.  "Oh!  You mean chess!"  So, I opened my large, black duffel bag with activities for students, gave him a chess board and pieces, then wrote his name down in my notebook.

On Friday afternoons, or sometimes during weeks with holidays, I do activities with the kids.  It can get pretty crazy sometimes.  When there's time, I've taught some of them chess and chinese checkers.  Sometimes we also push four tables together and play ping pong.  When the weather is good, they can play badminton.  There's never enough time to finish the 500 piece puzzle that I brought, but maybe someday it will happen.  This past week, they really enjoyed the Popular Science magazine. I get asked questions like, "Is that real?"  or "Can I make that?"

It shouldn't be a surprise that the ping pongs bust, badminton birdies get lost or racquets get broken strings, but it's not bad.  I check equipment and games out to the kids like a library system.  They have done a pretty good job at bringing things back.  After four months, all the decks of cards I've loaned out are beat up, but still complete! I'm hoping that when I'm gone, someone will be willing to take care of things so the students can continue to do the activities. 

The past two weeks, I've let them borrow my tablet.  This is a picture of them watching the movie "The Italian Job."  Although they like it, I should probably change it so they can use the tablet only to help learn English.

Originally, the people that were the most interested in playing chess were the girls.  :)  Sometimes, they will play checkers with the chess pieces.

Playing cards

Puzzle