2020 "Seed Teacher Project" -- Reading Magic Camp in Tainan Yujing Part 1

DENER launched a reading magic camp in Yujing, Tainan on July 31. This was the second time we had returned to Yujing Elementary School. Even though there have been some changes, our intention to put actual actions into rural education had not changed.This year, we also co-organized these activities with “Tathagata Family Care Association.” The children in Yujing mostly grew up in the agricultural family, and we could feel their simplicity and contentment in getting along with the children.

Among them, there were also a few children in special circumstances who need more careful attention. During the day, master Jue Xin compassionately took them, patiently teaching them step by step, so that the children could grow slowly.

In order to allow the children to have a different experience, we brought the joyful reading magic camp this time. In this magic school, children became little magicians. Their mission was to work hard to complete the course during the camp in order to obtain the lost magic fragments, and finally put the fragments together to retrieve their lost magic! In order to match the theme, the seed teachers, team assistants, and the staff played the roles of elders, professors, messengers, fairies etc. The children were also quite immersed in role-playing and scenes.

We also arranged a meeting game “Magic You and me ” so that the children could quickly get to know each other with their team and our volunteers and teachers.

During the game, children need to ask different questions to students, professors, messengers, and fairies in order to learn more about their preferences. Finally, we will see which child gets the most autographs and share his experience together.

There were more than 50 students participated in the magic camp, divided into two classes of high and low grades. On the morning of first day, the senior class was led by teacher Wei Chen. At the beginning of the course, the teacher first asked the students to play the matching game to arouse their curiosity about story books. Because every sport needed different equipment, students could understand by paring them. Immediately teacher Wei Chen began to lead everyone to take turns to read the story book “The warmest applause”, and asked related questions to encourage students to think about the content of the book. After the teacher shared the history and knowledge of soccer with the students, it was the outdoor physical education class. The competition divided the students into two teams. The students in each team played soccer with all their strength. The cheering on the court went one after another, and it was very lively. Everyone had a great time. After the competition, teacher Wei Chen once again emphasized the importance of sportsmanship to the students.

In the lower grades, teacher Yi Ting led the children to read the story book “Frog with the Big Mouth” and linking the story content of the story book to teach the children to use colored paper to fold out little frog.

Then she allowed the children to decorate their frogs, giving each frog a unique style. Finally, it’s time for each child to show their talents! Teacher Yi Ting asked the children of the two teams to make the best shots and used their own little frogs to carry out the relay race. The children cheered and encouraged their teams enthusiastically. While enjoying the excitement and fun of the game, the children also realized the importance of teamwork.

In the afternoon, two teachers Wei Chen and Rui Yun lead the children to play the game “Magic TEMPO.” Children must follow the rhythm and say the answer that matches the question, which was quite difficult and challenging for the kids. However, the children were very involved in it, and they were still unfulfilled even after the game ended. The time spent with the children always flied very fast, which made us look forward to the activities in the next few days.