E's Class Activity: Little Teachers
One of E's summer homework assignments was to learn something from an adult in the family, and then they had a day where they all taught their skill to their classmates.
Summer homework. I guess that's a thing here, even in elementary school. But I suppose they're trying to make it more creative and open-ended instead of the workbooks you get in the place we used to live. I guess that's a good thing. Anyway, E had to learn something from an elder and write this little report about it and she was supposed to be able to teach it to her classmates. I had a little trouble believing that would actually happen, but at any rate, we figured learning how to fold a little origami cup would be an easy thing to master and would also be easily taught to classmates in case that actually did happen. As a bonus, it was a skill that H had to teach her instead of me!
Well, it really did happen. And it was not just a two minute activity. They had the kids sign up for what things they wanted to learn, and they rotated through different groups of teachers/students. They asked parents to come in and help out, and kids showed up with cook tops and real food and washing machine posters and nearly everything you could think of. I could hardly believe what I was seeing! About a third of the kids had learned a craft of some kind, like E had, another third had learned something related to cooking or food, and the last third was made up of some assorted other activities like playing a tune on a little handheld instrument or running the washing machine.
Anyway, I was really shocked when the kids busted out all their actual kitchen tools. Can you imagine an activity in the US where a kid brings four knives and hands them out to his classmates to chop an apple?? Or turns on a real gas stove to fry some eggs?! I mean, there were really a lot of parents there, more than half the kids had a parent with them. But still! Anyway, E had a blast. They spent nearly the whole morning learning little tasks (and getting to eat the edible ones!). I have to admit that I was pretty proud when I realized that most of the kids who learned food-related tasks or chores were all teaching things that E could already do and regularly did, especially over the summer. But I was especially proud when I saw her teach her classmates how to make the origami cup! She knew exactly how to do it, and could even help them troubleshoot theirs. This is all in her second language, don't forget! She's really growing up into a quite capable little girl!