When we were investigating the organisation and how we would best support them we had multiple preliminary sessions in which we were able to develop our understanding. We were exploring first of all what age group we would be interacting with and trying to determine what would be an appropriate level for the children. During one such session, we were able to actually go to the 4 PM center and see where the kids were learning and even ask some questions to the principal. We were able to gather key information on what areas we should focus on for our activities in order to align it with the children’s learning at the center.
As well as learning about and understanding our service partner better by meeting with them, within the first lesson we also did some planning about our own strengths. In that session we wrote down what some of our potential strengths could be that could help contribute towards this service such as previous experience in theatre or working with children in that age range. By doing this, we were able to transfer some of the skills that we already had, into planning the activities for the children. This resulted in us making the sessions more interactive and engaging for them. Being UWC students we are exposed to this more interactive style of learning which maybe they do not receive often. We wanted to transfer some of our learning ways to them, this caused us to make activities not simply around playing games but around the arts, getting them to draw and act out things.