Nancy+Assad+Journal+2

Journal Entry #2: First Class   Today Layan, Farida, and Kholood had our first class at the Fakroon Nursery in Monsoreya. I had arrived a tad late as my driver had lost the way in his search for the right village in which the nursery was situated. When I finally got to the nursery, I entered to see Farida, Layan, and Kholood introducing themselves to the class. I told them my name and age as well. We then decided to first get to know the kids by asking them their names and interviewing them (information can be found in table of contents under "Student Portfolios "). We found out that many of the children desired to become doctors when they grew up. I was surprised to see the aspirations of these kids that were so high. We also asked each and every one of them what they thought about the revolution. All of them were aware of the revolution to details that even I did not know, which was also surprising. Many of them spoke about the importance of the youth and the generation that persevered until Mubarak stepped down. When I asked the boys if they would have done the same for their country they all screamed yes. We had a bunch of young nationalists before our eyes in our very own classroom. After we had all become acquainted with one another, we began by reviewing the english alphabet. None of the kids knew the alphabet completely by heart, although some were close, while others were completely unaware of what was going on. That is how we first decided to split the group. Two of us decided to take the kids that knew the alphabet fairly better than the others and work with them while the other two took the beginners to go at a slower pace. We spent the whole hour doing so, and at the end we left 30 minutes for games. When we went outside of the classroom to play games the boys immediately ran to the dirty, airless football they had outside and began playing with it. We got their attention and assembled them all to play the first game; musical chairs. After that, we played the funnest game with them. We all stood in a circle with each other's hand in the others. Then, one by one in the circles we would hit the other person's hand like a chain. However made a noise was out. We all truly enjoyed that game and shared laughs. When it was time to go we said by to them all and got it the car. We had left them with smiles on their faces, which made me very happy. It was a very productive day for the first class and I plan to progress through the year with these children!