A lot of our projects started up again this week - Saturday Bible Club, Sunday school, Homework Club - amidst a sudden flurry of maintenance work. We decided to try and include the girls in as many of our projects as possible this year (last year they were babysat a lot) as Lexi is almost two and a lot more capable and independent.
Bible Club went okay with them both, they love singing with the kids and fortunately we had a volunteer (Eloise) with us to help with the activity (a craft on this Saturday) while I helped my girls. I can see that we will have to adapt our way of working if we don't have extra hands available though. Perhaps even plan for two activities - one much simpler than the other for the preschoolers and our two. I feel like that could work because there are about 15 under 6's that attend and their siblings have to help them with the activities.
It was wonderful seeing all the Kingdom Kids at Sunday School on Sunday again. All of our regular kids as well as two sisters that hadn't been attending for most of last year were there, and one of the youths brought along his younger brother and sister which boosted our preschool class to 6 even though there were 3 others absent. I taught the story of Moses being hidden in the basket, and we "sewed" paper plate halves together using pipe cleaners to create a basket for the baby Moses which they colored. For the rest of the week Zante has been calling all of her baby dolls "Moses" and hiding them in various places.
Homework Club was perhaps the hardest when it came to including the girls. We first made up 40 food parcels which was an activity that they could be a part of and really enjoyed, but after that we played a board game for which there were already too many players, all very energetic, loud, preteen boys. Again we were very fortunate to have Eloise assist with regulating the game, which requires full time vigilance as they are forever forgetting whose turn it is or accusing each other of cheating, or just being silly in general. Even so they absolutely love playing and board games are really good for teaching social skills as well as developing their critical thinking and planning skills. However during this time Zante and Lexi needed to be entertained too. Zante I could occupy with the many puzzles and matching games we have on hand but eventually I did take Lexi over to my sister Liezl's as she was not enjoying herself at all. Here again we need to change up the way we run Homework Club and include more toddler friendly activities if we want to include both girls on a regular basis.
Since the Creche Courses haven't yet started for this year we had Thursday available and the team decided to use the day to both revamp our church meeting room as well as sort the knitted squares we receive from the States into piles of 30 - which is the amount necessary to make up one blanket. The elderly ladies (Gogos) that attend sister's classes join the squares together and then donate the blankets to children that need them. We had several huge bags full of these squares which we eventually just dumped out onto a carpet and then first made piles of similar stitch type, then sorted those into piles of similar sizes, and then made packs of 30 mostly complimentary colors. The girls loved this mountain of softness! After six hours of sorting we managed to have only one big bag of squares left over, but just couldn't any more. That night I saw different stitch patterns every time I tried to close my eyes!
While us ladies were tackling this mammoth task the men did a fantastic job repainting the church meeting room, with an accentuating golden strip along the walls which really livens up the room. They also fixed the sliding door and put skirting along the wall, and Liezl plans to paint a bible verse along the golden strip. Of course Lexi managed to walk through the paint at least once, and Zante insisted on helping her dad fill up the holes in the wall and then complained bitterly because the polyfilla didn't come off her hands very easily!
No comments:
Post a Comment