Day 9, Monday - Vientiane

Everything ended up working out really well today when we went to teach at NongBoauThongTai. We started the morning by teaching the children greetings, including telling their age. We were surprised to find they already knew how to say numbers in English. We spent the rest of the morning focusing on the seasons. We taught them about how our year is divided into four seasons, what the weather is like in each, the clothing you normally where for the weather and what kind of things you can do such as playing sports and building snowmen. The children went outside with us to learn what a baseball and a football look like and how to throw them. Some of the boys had quite an arm on them and the girls did a great job of all joining together to play catch. The Director of Primary Education, Mrs. KhamVanh Razakhan came to watch and seemed really pleased to see the kids playing. She said that they had never had the equipment before. After the lunch break we started back up by teaching colors. Colors seemed to be a lesson that they all really grasped which was great to see. Following that we taught them about food and animals. We had a lot of fun playing with the children by calling out animal names and having them make the sound of the animal or vice versa. The favorite in the classroom seemed to be meow. Our last topic was a description of some of our main holidays: New Years, Christmas, Thanksgiving and Halloween. The class joined us in learning to sing jingle bells when we discussed Christmas. We noticed that it seemed like one boy almost new the song already which was interesting. The day ended by talking about Halloween and we practiced trick-or-treating. We acted as people in houses and the children had to ask for dum-dum lollipops by saying trick-or-treat. At first they were shy but when they realized they got a piece of candy each time they said the phrase they quickly got excited and "trick-or-treated' repeatedly. Overall the day felt really successful. It was rewarding to see all of the participation that they children gave us. In their drawing activities especially, they were really detailed and seemed to be enjoying themselves.