Report of the activities held on February 18th, 2015, at Kdm, Jakarta
Participants:
15 kids.
Trainers:
Ibu Uut
Mara
Benedetta
Sotar
Indy
Nancy
1. When we arrived in the class-room, the children were quite noisy and a bit hyperactive.
We started in the hall discussing the posters with the rules of activities.
Then we followed with the 2 opening songs.
The kids participated well.
2. The starting games were done outside in the open area, and this, on hindsight, wasn't the best idea, the kids were very quickly distracted by their friends, who were passing by.
Some of the children from the other class tried to mix in the activities.
We did “Boom Boom Car” first.
Instruction:
1.
Divide all the participants into two groups. We divide them by asking them that we need 2 leaders. After that the leaders can choose their group members.2.
The first group gathers in the right side and the second group gathers in the left side.3.
All they have to do is trying strike down the participant from the opposite group. But while doing it, they have to be in squat position and their hands fold behind their knees.4.
We tell the children that they have to be honest if they already have fallen.5.
The child ,who has already fallen, has to move aside and to cheer the other group member that still on the game.6.
The group who have more survivors is the winner.The facilitators will do the demonstration
The kids seem to like the game, but I think the problem with the blue group is that they become rough and uncontrolled very fast. The boys started to pounce on each other (L. and I.), M. got into a fight with D. and O. cried because A. accidentally toppled her.
We have to be very clear with them that they have to be careful with each other.
3. Then we did the game “Come into My Castle”.
Like the previous game we need a child "The castle"who stands with his/her back at a wall facing the other children (who are a bit far from him/her)
The other children are divided in two groups.
The goal is to reach first the "Castle" making steps according with what animal the team chooses.
Ex.: If the team n. 1 chooses to make steps as an elephant and the team n. 2 chooses a mouse instead, the winner will be the elephant team.
Of course the children can change animals and number of steps in order to reach the goal first.
This exercise stimulates not only their fantasy but make them think and choose consequently. Moreover they have to learn to follow the rules.
It took a very long time to explain (more than 30 minutes) and the group became restless and chaotic. Some of us (trainers) were also a bit confused about the rules, what made things a bit more difficult.
Also some kids from the other groups were walking in between.
In the end we split the kids up in 2 groups and each group had to decide what animal they wanted to be and how many strides they would take towards Mara. But then there was the problem that it was difficult to get the kids agree in 1 group to be the same thing and be take the same amount of strides, so some chose a different animal and we counted and stopped after each stride.
In the end the game was executed bit by bit. The kids got it and they liked to do the game.
We asked the kids what they thought:
F.: difficult rules
L.: difficult to play
B.: easy to play
E.: difficult when jump
Sotar: we learned how to work together. If we don’t work together, games will be difficult.
4. After that we went inside the library to discuss the movie and try some role-play.
The discussion went well. We only have to be careful that not only B., F. and A. take the lead in a discussion. When given the chance, the other kids (except M., I., and some of the smaller kids) have interesting things to say.
Interesting thought of one of the kids: Bawang merah (evil stepsister) maybe behaves badly because she is sad, because the prince doesn’t want to marry her.
The role-play was hard to do. We divided the kids in groups of 5, but we took out R. and F. because they started to punch each other. I told the kids, that they can't join the activities if they hit someone.
F. pretended that he didn’t care and started to read a book.
D tried to get back into the group by clinging to me, but I told her for now she couldn’t join. She seemed to take it well.
We didn't let the kids do the role-play in the end. It took too long for them to have them decide on how to do a short role-play, time was running out and some kids couldn't agree which character they should be.
We ended with a discussion about what they think about role-play as an activity. I asked them what they found difficult in this activity: L. said it was because kids like B. weren't serious and kept fooling around.
In another group kids only wanted to be the bawang putih (good girl) character. In an other group G. made fun of M.
We ended with Musica Musica and The Little Green Frog.
After the session Indy and I spoke with Sotar and Uut.
Conclusions:
We should keep instructions simple and short.
Activities should be challenging but not too complicated and not too many rules the kids have to remember.
Focus on team building and social skills.
Ibu Uut, Sotar and I concluded that we better do future physical games in the closed dining area as to avoid distractions.
The kids would like to try some drama activities, but we should find some with clear instructions and very simple ones because they find it hard to improvise. For instance how to express emotions.
Overall the kids were a bit hyperactive and we had to break up several fights and instructions took too long so the kids got restless.
In case we are not able to stick with an original plan for a session, we should have a backup plan/activity.
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