Reflections of Our First Session

On November 1st, our team headed to preschool for the first Jumpstart session. Due to the continuous and consistent meetings we were comfortable about the foundational purpose and values of each activity to the execution of our various roles. Soon enough, each one of us realized that being in the classroom with the kids can bring new challenges and surprise. As soon as we stepped in the classroom and introduced ourselves to our Jumpstart friends, we headed to our designated area for welcome time. I was prepared for going through the letters of the names, for I reviewed the purpose statement and took note of phrases such as “vertical, horizontal, curve” accordingly.  What I was not ready for, along with my other teammates as I looked around the room, was finding and keeping the kids’ interests and attention to actually go through what we trained for. Even harder was engaging them in the course story book. One of my kids had to leave early, so I only had one to read the book to. I was completely wrong when I thought that it would be easier to get through the book. He wanted to read other books, so as to not discourage reading, I followed along and guided along the book he wanted to read. I learned that although the activities should be “children led,” in this case, I needed to affirm that we had to follow a certain schedule and allow leniency within the set curriculum.

In order for us to efficiently exert our planned session lessons, we needed to be assertive in the sense that we build a framework where kids are free to spur creativity and ownership. Since it was our first session, we knew that it would be rough and set our main goal to get through every part with smooth transitions. We all knew the sequential activities and our roles accordingly, in addition to filling, but not exceeding the time for each one. A notable achievement for our first session was during center time when our team leader Maia led the group in going over the songs and covering all the possible activities the students could do in a timely manner. Even though it was difficult in trying to engage the children and hold their attention to the front, Maia kept going in explaining the activities and covering both the song and the poem. I think that our first session was crucial in reminding us that since we have a firm grasp on the framework, we can improve our efficiency within the guidelines with time and practice.

~Janny Jang
Corps member
Team Joy 1