Day 4: Second day of VIA at Watroka Primary School

After last night's revision of our lesson plans, we are more confident of today's progress in the classrooms. All of us had a good breakfast before heading to Watroka Primary School.

Cloudless sky today when we were on the way to school

Upon reaching the school compound, we saw that the sand had settled to the bottom of the soil ground we created yesterday. There were even trail marks of earthworms on the surface!

A mixture of soil and sand for the floor before putting bamboo structures and cement

Unbundling the bamboo stems

Sorting and aligning the bamboo stems. The crooked ones will be used to lay the foundations of the ground while the straight ones will be used for the walls of the classroom. 

Learning from the elders

Working hard together

 

Retrieving water from the well and helping to secure wires around the bamboo structures

Helping to lay the bricks outside the classroom

There was better classroom management and the students were more engaged.

An English lesson for the primary school students

Some of the students' works were pinned up in the classroom

Everyone was sweaty but was less concerned about getting soil and dirt on our clothes as we were all focused on our tasks, to build the foundation of the new classroom and to bond well with the students through games during their recess. After a hard day's work, we returned to our hotel rooms for a shower and some rest before our dinner. 

 

Fireworks near the hotel before we left for dinner. The Cambodians are celebrating the water festival this weekend.

Serving dinner to other team mates

Reflections and fine tuning our lessons for the next day

Reflections:

Siti Radhiah Afandi - 3C

I see improvements in today's activities, even though it was a bit rushed last night as we had little time to come together as a group and come up with new ideas for our lesson plan. The kids were also more co-operative in class today as they listened more attentively to our lessons. Overall, there was a huge difference. Today went well because of our successful lesson and my group and I bonded even more.

I think that our lessons were interesting and the kids had shown more interest. Many of them were willing to fold more origami papers after we taught them and I could see that they enjoyed it. I think that even though there were hiccups while planning our activities, my group managed to overcome our initial challenges and persevered.

I wonder if how I can make sure that the kids had fun during our lessons. Getting their attention was one of the struggles I have faced but along the way, I picked up some skills to let the children settle down to learn in class.

Qistina - 3B

I see that we continued to build the classroom with more skills, by classifying the quality of the bamboo sticks and using them to stablize the floor. There were much improvements in the soft CIP. The students paid more attention to the lessons as compared to yesterday.

I think that it is important to carry out our tasks properly because it may consume more time and effort to complete the tasks if we do not do that. I think that today's lesson was more organised and we did a better job in teaching them. Today we taught them Mathematics: addition and subtraction. Also, we gave them printed pictures to colour. 

I wonder if I can reserve the energy and still be energetic during the soft CIP (teaching the students) because the hard CIP (building the classroom) was exhausting in the morning. I wonder if I can do a better job tomorrow for the hard and soft CIP.

Max Chng - 3N2
This morning I saw that the project was almost halfway done. I felt good. The elder uncles teaching us how to build the classroom have more strength than us and were very skilled. They took less than one minute to hammer down the nail while we took 10 minutes.  I also saw that the students were excited to see us and wanted to learn new things.

I think that the project can be done faster if we spend our timely wisely. I learnt new skills from the elderly uncles such as tieing wires and hammering to secure the foundation of the classroom. For the lesson, I feel that our classroom management improved. I think that our lesson plan went well and we managed to carry out the lesson. The students really enjoy colouring.

I wonder if I can be as hardworking as the uncles and students. I also wonder if I can handle my time management wisely and pick up more skills from the elderly. I also hope to control the class better and be more firm with the students. I feel that it is important to persevere even though some students were hard to handle. This is resilience.