Our Blog
New School YearJuly 25, 2013
Wow!! What an awesome start to the 2013-14 school year! We had two enthusiastic college students from Detroit, Michigan come and visit us for three weeks to help kick off the new school year.
The Philippine school year runs June- March, which is why I'm talking about school while you're on summer vacation. Last school year we didn't offer music, art, or gym classes. So this year we thought it would be fun to have a whole two weeks of those fun classes taught by our US imports.
The school day started at 7:30 a.m. with prayer, Philippine National Anthem, pledges to the Philippine flag, Christian flag and the Bible, and then exercises. This was followed by a 30 minute devotional which included singing, and reading from God's word.
Next the floor was given to Hannah Sabol for an hour of music class. Hannah is a music education major at Madonna University. So she got to practice all the cool stuff she is learning on a classroom full of kids who had hardly heard of Do, Re, Mi, let alone treble clef. :) Don't get me wrong. The kids are bursting with talent. Most of them sing, and harmonize. Many of them play piano and guitar, and have taught themselves to play by ear... but they know nothing of music theory. Besides teaching some basic theory, Hannah and Erin taught the kids voice warm ups and some basics to voice training... then prepared a special presentation for the Sunday service with three part harmony. But all the kids' favorite was the dynamics class with a rousing theme of ..."You Can't Ride in my Little Red Wagon."
Next Erin Kleist took over, to lead the art class with Hannah as her faithful antagonist, I mean assistant. :) Erin is an Archeology major at Rochester University, but knows lots about art from her mom, who was an art teacher for many years. Erin taught the kids how to crochet, make friendship bracelets, and home made play dough. She gave them some tips about drawing faces, funny faces, people, moving people, still objects, shading, landscapes, and also went over the color chart. On play dough day, the kids broke into groups for a "Best 4D Creation" contest. The winners got a cash prize!!!
