for the ones who follow cffap so far, i've told that the university and its demands hold me back from writting with the same speed i used to. specifically, i'm assigned to go to a kindergarten and practice. what am i going through though. well, read to find out

before i am allowed go to the kindergarten, i gotta make fully fleshed activities for the gremlins- eeerm, the children to teach them about a subject.

last semester i was making activities for just half a day. the other half was for another teammate with which we would be paired up to teach. all that, 3 times. but this semester we were assigned to make activities, for 2 fridays of teaching. for half a day and another where we would teach by ourselves. i'm making this message because i finally decided to give ya all a slight taste of what i do when i teach.

i wouldn't be allowed post pictures of my teammates teaching, for obvious reasons but since it's me and my teachings, it's fine by me. me is giving permission to me show what i do. lel. anyways.

this semester, our subject was artists. so far, me and my teammates have taught the children on 4 artists: van gogh, edgar degas, anrie matisse and last friday, rene magritte. just a few days back, on friday again, it was my turn to teach, by myself, the whole day with little to no interference from my teammates or the actual kindergarten teachers who were just watching and judging us.

thank goodness i had them all near me to help me with little details at least, or control better the lil' beasts to be quiet and cooperate, cause they were a little army. 17 children are way too many in a kindergarten classroom, at least in a greek one.

anyways, where was i? few days back on friday, it was my day to teach for a whole kindergarten day. the artist i was assigned to make activities about and teach the kids was on frida kahlo. pictures will follow about what i do and explanation, showing my actions and activities. for obvious reasons i blurry the faces of the kids and a few times of my teammates when they appear on screen.

but before that, quick presentation of routines before the lesson begins in the kindergarten:

-arrival of kids and free activities
-clean up
-gathering to the corner of company
-prayer (made up, like a poem)
-counting of present children. a girl counts all girls, a boy counts all boys and at the end whether another girl, whether another boy, counts everyone (they already know how to count high enough if you ask)
-questioning about what day of the week is and number of month
-class begins

and now let's go to the activities i did👇🏽

slow introduction of the artist:

the one on the black sweater is a teammate. this chonk 'flowery' young woman is me. i remind the children what they've talked about last 4 fridays. then i test them to see if they can find the 2 most basic common characteristics of the 4 people they've heard about (3 if we count the fact they're all dead, but their mind wouldn't even think about it).

said 2 basic common characteristics are that they were all painters and that they were men. the second one, the kids didn't realise it until i repeated the artists' names alongside of all boys in the classroom. only then they realised that, "wait a damn second, these painters are all boys like the ones miss raisa pat on the head!"

once they got it, perfect opportunity to ask them then if there are women artists, in which they answered positively, rather for the fact that even all girls draw art for their parents so they conclude there are female ones.

revelation of the artist's face and short introduction about her life:

as i hold my laptop i'm about to support my first activity of the day. before that i say some basic characteristics of frida, where she was from, what adventures she had and shortly point at a few of her paintings, here:

just to give an extra info, i show the kids where mexico is in comparison to crete through google maps:

the first activity we are ALWAYS assigned to do for this semester, is read a book about the artist, in kids terms. the previous 4 artists weren't as inaccurate to their lore since there weren't many brutal or inappropriate details (aside van gogh and him cutting his own ear or that he went mad and was send in the asylum), but they butchered frida's story, cause 80% of her lore is gore, pain, suffering and infidelities. and i can say almost none of these to the kids.

let them learn about such details when they grow up more and that's it. for now basic stuff. okay, no. i did pass to them that frida suffered for a big part of her life lots of injuries and the difficulties she faced with polio (which caused her right leg to be smaller and weaker than the other). not many details though. after all kids most of the time don't wanna listen to pain in details, or know it at all for that matter.

after the story, we students are assigned to pick one of her paintings, that we have chosen before hand to analyze alongside with the babies. ask them what they can see, what they can recognize and what thoughts they have about what they see. whatever is said we must write it down, as they are important for our final assignment at the end of the semester.

after the story and painting analysis, kids proceed to wash hands and nom their food. then they're on big break and play outside. they enter in and sit down on their tables to rest for a while, until i wake them up by smacking them (gently) on the head with a 'magic wand'.

and then, my second activity began. one with action and running:

here is another of my teammate helping me set up the obstacle course. i told the kids that one by one would run the course freely. once they would finish running the course, i would ask my teammates to write down the time it took each kid to complete their run. it was easy for them, almost none of them finished the course in more than a minute.

but then the REAL fun began when i told them they would run the course for a second time, with this catch:

as you can see, this baby is wearing a special 'shoe' on the left leg. this represents frida's polio condition and the kids were challenged to finish the course while having temporarily her condition. very few managed to finish the course in less than 3 minutes while humping and stumbling😂

despite this activity took VERY horribly long against my calculations, the kindergarten teachers called this one basically a genius activity.

it was carrying very important life lessons for the kids to catch. for starters they had tasted what it's like not being healthy and with all limbs properly functioning. how the course they went through instantly became so darn hard the moment they wore the shoe and had almost no balance.

that now they had an idea on what people with physical conditions can go through. however not just that. i wanted the kids to see that disabled or not, they still DID manage to pass the course. that a disabled person isn't less capable of accomplishing things as the healthy ones.

and that just like how frida didn't give up for so long in life while disabled and in pain, the kids had NO excuse on ever giving up for anything in their lives while being all healthy, nor defy or get defied by people for disabilities on what one can or can't do.

like that, my second activity was probably the most successful out of the 3.

speaking of which, i was left with 15 minutes to complete my lesson for the day before the kindergarten teacher for the evening took over. i sended the kids to the tables inside their classroom and gave them to draw cut pieces from one of frida's paintings. however they liked, not based on the original painting. at the end i took their colored pieces and put them together. sadly i have no picture to show here, but next friday, if i remember it i will snap a picture of what the kids' results were by drawing however they liked their piece given.

and that was how my class went. i wasn't allowing myself to get happy for managing to teach for so darn long successfully 17 CHILDREN, but eventually the positive judgment of the kindergarten teachers who were watching me clicked in me. i give to the lesson i passed 7.5 out of 10. it puts a smile to my face that all activities managed to get the kids' attention UwU. there were at times 2 little ones that wanted to act like annoying sh*ts, but they were soon after getting a scolding and behaving.

now you have an idea too of how my training goes. have a great day, night, or in between. bye.