There was a lot of artwork about religion and history - and also a lot of antique furniture. I always enjoy learning about culture. :) And I made it over to the smoothie bar for an acai & mango smoothie. Delicious!Our orientation meeting went well - it was nice to hear what everyone else is doing (only 4 of us are going to the daycare). We ended up skipping the music festival, so that we could prepare some lesson ideas for Monday. (And plus, there's another music festival on Tuesday. Ha ha.)
Then TODAY, we went to our placements and met the kids! At the daycare, there are 4 classes of different age groups; so each volunteer has their own class. I'm with the 3-4 year olds. :) It turns out I'm pretty lucky: my class is small (only 11 children) and the teacher is very nice. Unfortunately, no one at the daycare speaks English, and we don't speak Portuguese. We've been trying to get by with the little Spanish we know. I immediately tossed out my lessons, since my class mostly just plays around. We can't take pictures of the kids until later in the week, after they get to know us. But they're already so welcoming and affectionate towards me. There's a little boy, Gabriel, who's very patient with me and trying to help me with Portuguese. It's too cute! :)
We leave our assignments around lunch-time and Monday-Friday afternoons we have our cultural lessons at the homebase. Today was a capoeira lesson! It's a combination of marital arts and dancing - very unique to Brazil. I'll post a picture of it, but you really need to watch a video. Look up capoeira on Google or Youtube to see what it is. :) Very cool.
Ok, that's all for now. :)Love, Laura
Hi Laura, Great to hear from you, hear about your assignment with 3 and 4 year olds, and see the group picture. You're right about 3 and 4 year olds and lessons! They may like to just finger print or make blottos (small blobs of paint on both sides of folded paper, close and mush together and opened for a surprise design and color mix.) But you'd need paint available for both activities. Maybe just playing is your best bet. I think it's so cute how Gabriel is helping you with the language! Glad to hear you visited the art museum. Love, Mom
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