Sunday, June 22, 2008

Celebration

Dear volunteers,

It's been a long time since we got together with the children in the journaling program ( Yellow House). This is just to remind you that the celebration ( last gathering) with the children will be held on June 28, Saturday between 9.30am and 12.30pm in Room C18-C20.

We are planning to have souvenirs, games and certificate presentation , not to mention some yummy food.
Most of all this will be an opportunity for you to meet and spend time with the children before we say our farewells. Do encourage them to keep in touch or better still , take down thier contact details ( we can provide these as well) so that you can keep in touch with them. Please give them encouragement and wish them well for their future as you will definitely have an impact on thier lives.

The organizing committee also needs your help ( all volunteers) for the preparation at room C18-C20 this Friday after 3pm . More information on this event will be available later this week.

Thank you
Ms Rajani

Friday, May 2, 2008

MADU Club/‘Yellow House’ journaling program
Session 6 – 3 May 2008
Venue: Cafeteria

All volunteers to gather and group by 9.00am. Groups
should prepare themselves for the upcoming session.

A) Arrival of children ( 9.30 am -10.00 am)

B) Treasure Hunt ( 9.45am -10.30am)
C) Main activity ( 10.30 -11.00am)
Explore & Create: The moral of the story is……

The children in each group will be given a chapter of a story ( King Arthur) or a short story. One or more of the children will have to read the book aloud (with a volunteer, helping with pronunciation etc.) while the rest ( children and volunteers) will prepare a short skit based on the story. Props and costumes will be made from newspaper and other materials. Each group will present their story.

Tea break ( 11.00am -11.20 am)

D) Journaling
Volunteers should get the children to write about reading ( What they like to read, How much they like to read, What they thought about the story they read). The younger ones can also draw some characters from the story.

End and debrief ( 12.10am -12.30am)

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Dear all,

First we ( the teacher advisors of MADU Club) would like to thank all of you in making the last session (station games) a successful one!

Keep up the good work!

This Saturday is our 5th session. I'm sure all of you will make it a fun and exciting time for the children. Below is the general plan:

MADU Club/‘Yellow House’ journaling program
Session 4 – 19 April 2008
Venue: Classrooms (C18-C20/C22)

All volunteers to gather and group in room C18-20 by 9.00am. Groups
should prepare themselves for the upcoming session.

A) Arrival of children ( Some volunteers to remain near the café) ( 9.30 am -10.00 am)

B) Theme: Going through changes…… What I would like to be….
Warm –up activity

Group leaders will have to take charge of this first activity. Basically, the kids and the volunteers will each be given a sheet of paper. The kids and the volunteers are to write down what is the first thing that comes into their mind. Ask them not to think as this will make this game boring. Once they have written the first answer down, they are to fold the answer downward so that their answer is hidden. Then pass the piece of paper to the next person. Repeat the steps until all the blanks are filled with answers. Ask the first person to read the answer as according to this:
One day, I decided to be a/an _______________________.
I asked my friend and he said I should be a/an _________________________.
Confused, my teacher then said I should be a/an ___________________________.
Finally, I decide that I would love to be a/an __________________________.

Then group leaders can introduce the main activity which is ‘going through changes’

C) Explore and Create (10.00am – 11.15am)

Using news papers , mahjong paper and water colours & magic ink, volunteers are to dress children according to what they would like to be ( A policeman, business man (CEO), Politician, surgeon, or even superheroes).
All those who are dressed up would need to parade, other children be asked to guess the costume while one or more of the group members can comment on the costume.(Music can be played for accompaniment)

Tea break ( 11.15am -11.35 am)

D) Share ( 11.35am – 12.10am)
Volunteers are to ask the children about their ambitions and to help the children to write about it in the journals. The younger ones can draw if they
Volunteers who have photo collages of themselves in their journals should share this with the children.

End and debrief ( 12.10am -12.30am)

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Session 4 - April 5

Dear all

Hope to see you this Saturday for our next session. It will be fun as we have many games planned. The lesson plan is as follows ( subject to change depending on the time)

MADU Club/‘Yellow House’ journaling program
Session 4 – 4 April 2008
Venue: Cafeteria and Classrooms

All volunteers to gather and group at TUCMC cafeteria by 9.00am. Groups
should prepare themselves for the upcoming session.

A) Grouping - cafeteria ( 9.30 am -10.30 am)

Station games


B) Main activity (10.30am – 11.15am)

Theme : Team work
Newspaper Shelter
Objective:
To allow for observation of team interaction while exploring communication
skills, cooperation, planning, and having fun.

Materials:
Newspapers, Manila Cards and masking tape.

Instructions:
The group is told they are stuck in the desert or on a deserted island. They have
to build a structure that is free standing and will protect the entire group from the
sun.
They have 20 minutes to plan how they are going to build the structure. After the
20 minutes they have 20 minutes to build the structure, but they cannot talk


Tea break (11.15am -11.35am )

Share (11.35 am – 12.10pm)

Volunteers can get children to answer these questions:

1. What worked during the planning and building/ ?
2. What problems did you face ?
2. How did you plan your structure?
3. What roles emerged during the process? Was there a leader?
4. Did everyone have an active role?
5. How did it feel to not be able to talk during the building phase?
6. Did you work as a team? How do you know?
7. What did you learn about yourself and your team (ask about different people, why it is important to work as a group) during this exercise?


Debrief session – Volunteers only ( 12.10pm -12.30pm)


See you there,

Ms Rajani

Monday, March 24, 2008

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Hi from Tiffany

Hi All,

Thank you so much for your input. I have prepared 20 prizes (worth RM 39.90 each), so please keep those feedback coming in.

Also, my comments on the drama idea:
- It'll be good to have a narrator for the drama. That helps kids to improve their listening skill.
- Keep your script short and sweet.
- You can even involve the kids and make this drama interactive. When you make the script to be predictable, get them to fill in the voids in the script that you intentionally leave out. They love such moments.
- When planning the script, bear in mind to make some quizzes at the end so kids can answer. You'll also be able to gauge how much they listened and understand the drama.
- Remember to have lots of fun, as you guys always do!!

Cheers!
Tiffany T.

Session 3 March 22

Dear all

Hope you had a good break... This Saturday marks our 3rd session for journaling activities. I hope that you ( at least some of you) have learnt something or gained in some way through these activities. As Ms Tiffany had requested please do share your ideas and give your comments, through this blog ( if you can) or during the debrief sessions. You can also approach us personally if you want to.

Below is the plan for this Saturday's session:


MADU Club/‘Yellow House’ journaling program
Session 3 – 22 March 2008
Venue: Cafeteria and Classrooms

All volunteers to gather and group at TUCMC cafeteria by 9.00am. Groups
should prepare themselves for the upcoming session.

A) Grouping - cafeteria ( 9.30 am -10.15 am)
· Arrival of children
· Grouping & distribution of journals
· Announcements
· Groups to adjourn to respective venues for active

B) Main activity (10.15am – 11.15am)

Theme : My Story

Explore and Create

For younger children
The children are given a set of pictures from a comic strip. They then have to rearrange the pictures to form a comic with a story. Once it is done, they are to paste the comic into their journals and start to write dialogue for the characters ( in the ‘dialogue bubbles’). They children can then colour their comic strip. Volunteers are to help children to write the dialogue. Please encourage them and prompt them to create a story and to write the dialogue.

For Older children
The children are given an A3 size paper with 12 boxes drawn on it. They will have to draw a comic in the boxes given. Before they can start planning and drawing, they have to get the theme for their comic from the group leaders. Group leaders are to cut the 10 various themes before giving it to the children so that each one will have their own theme to draw. All the while, the volunteers are to help them with the dialogue and also the drawing whenever they ask for help.

Tea break (11.15am -11.35am )

Share (11.35 am – 12.10pm)

Based on the previous activity, ask the children to write a story for the comic that they have created( in the language that they are comfortable with) Tell them that they need to write the story based on the events in the comic strip. Your aim is to get them to write a story based on the given situation. Then ask them to do a reflection of the story to their lives (if this can be related to their lives) and ask them to write their thoughts in the journal ( can be done at home if they don’t have time) . Please do help the children with writing, as some of them may not have sufficient skills



Debrief session – Volunteers only ( 12.10pm -12.30pm)


See you on Saturday!

Thursday, March 6, 2008

thoughts on jounaling

Dear all,
I'm sure you are looking forward to the break next week. Do have a good holiday and see you on 22 March , our next session..

I'm sure you remember Ms Tiffany Tang who was with us during the last session. Here is something that she'd like to share with us:


Dear Everyone,

Hope it has been a good week for you. Once again, I’d like to say a BIG ‘thank you’ to all the lecturers and volunteers who have so passionately given your time to conduct the journaling program with the kids from various homes. I assure you that in giving to these children, some day you too, would receive rewards that far outweigh what you have contributed.

I mentioned that I would like to share a little and suggest some ideas along the way on how we can make the sessions more impactful, meaningful and effective. I hope you can give some feedback to these ideas. The more brains, the better, so don’t keep ideas to yourself. Bounce them off to us here. This is an excellent platform where all of us can and should be using to exchange our suggestions.

1) You’ve gotta experience first in order it to share it well.
Creative journaling is somewhat a tricky and abstract issue. It’s not the activity that makes sense, but it’s the practice which resulted from an understanding that by writing and putting my thoughts in a book, I can perhaps work out this problem. (Are you confused? Well, like I’ve said - it’s abstract!)

But firstly, you would have to be convinced that, YES!, journaling has indeed helped me when I was sad due to an incident. Or journaling has given me the courage to speak my mind as I have learnt to express myself more confidently. Such examples are necessary for you as the volunteer to grasp. Otherwise, you would be doing it just as another activity. The actual message hasn’t been conveyed.

I’d like to end by sharing some benefits of journaling. This has to do with personal growth. Read them and be inspired! There are already 21 benefits listed here. When you have started your own journal, please feel free to share how you have been impacted by it. The first 8 volunteers who share on this blog get a prize from me!

Personal growth:
Journaling …
Enables you to live life to the fullest
Is fun, playful and sometimes humorous
Expresses and creates
Plants seeds
Starts the sorting and grouping process
Integrates life experiences and learnings
Moves you towards wholeness and growth, to who you really are
Creates more results in life
Explores your spirituality
Focuses and clarifies your desires and needs
Enhances self expression
Enhances career and community
Allows freedom of expression
Offers progressive inner momentum to static unrelated events
Exercises your mental muscles
Improves congruency and integrity
Enhances breakthroughs
Unfolds the writer in you
Maximizes time and business efficiency
Explores night dreams, day dreams and fantasies
Measures and tracks what is important

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Session 2 lesson update

All volunteers to gather and group at TUCMC cafeteria by 9.00am. Groups
should prepare themselves for the upcoming session.


A) Grouping and introductions - cafeteria ( 9.30 am -10.15 am)
· Arrival of children
· Grouping & distribution of journals
· Announcements
· Groups to adjourn to respective venues for activity.

B) Ice breaker /game (10.15 am – 10.40 am)

1) For groups meeting for the first time; get to know children, team leaders to
write the names down.
2) Create a team name - encourage the children to give their opinions
3) ‘Treasure chest’/team building – Each team will be given a set of instructions.
First team to finish is the winner.

C) Main activity (10.40am – 11.15am)
Journaling Theme: About myself
1)Explore and Create
a) Identifying emotions
- Volunteers to ask children to identify emoticons
- Children are to draw emoticons and label them represent expressions
eg. Happy, sad, angry etc. in their journals ( Volunteers can model or help)
- The children should be encouraged to draw and illustrate these
emoticons as creatively as possible

b) About myself / A day in my life
- Draw/ Make a pie chart/ histogram representing activities in a day of your life. (volunteers are encouraged to show an example). For each activity draw an emoticon to show their feelings at that time.


Tea break (11.15am -11.35am )

2)Share (11.35am -12.10pm)

- Get children to share something about themselves and their feelings. You can get
them to talk about their day.
- Ask them what makes them happy, sad or feel other emotions (You can share
something about yourselves)
- Get them to write a short description about an incident that made them happy/
Sad/ disappointed/angry in their journals ( they don’t have to share this if they
are uncomfortable



Debrief session – Volunteers only ( 12.10 -12.30pm)

Session 2 - 1 March 2008

Hello everyone

All volunteers are to attend this session. Please contact your group leaders for more information about the activities. You are to gather in the cafeteria by 9am. Please check this site for latest updates tomorrow.

Thanks
Ms Rajani

Thursday, February 21, 2008

URGENT !! Changes for 23 February

Dear all

We got news that only 30 -40 children will be coming this Sat. ( 23 Feb). So, we don't need that many volunteers and have decided that only certain groups need to come. The volunters that should attend are those with the following leaders:
1. Fazrul Mohd Hanizan
2. New Jaa Ming
3. Adidah Abdul Aziz
4. Kaeshalya

These group leaders should ensure that their group members are present.

All other group leaders ( leaders only) are encouraged to come for observation and further planning.

The next session will be on 1 March. Please look out for further posts on this site for the latest information.


Thanks
Ms Rajani ( 012-2386717)

Sunday, February 17, 2008

New meeting date

hello everyone,

Since many can't make it on Tues. the meeting shall be in the same place ( D17/19) at 3pm on Wed, Feb 20. If everyone is punctual we can make it short !

Thanks
Rajani

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Upcoming sessions

With the cancellation of the 16 Feb session, the first session is now the 23 of Feb ( Saturday).

To prepare for this session, all group leaders and volunteers are to gather at rooms D17-D19 at 3pm Tuesday, 19 Feb 2008.

The purpose of this session is :
i) to make some important announcements
and ii) to brief everyone on the upcoming session

The meeting is expected to end at 4pm.

Thanks
Ms Rajani

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

URGENT!!!

Tha latest news is that some of the homes are still not able to confirm their attendance for the program. Therefore WE WILL HAVE TO POSTPONE the first session to begin on the 23rd of Feb.

THIS SATURDAY'S SESSION IS CANCELLED (16th Feb)

We will be using the material originally planned for the 16th on the 23rd.

Any questions, please ask through this blog.

Rajani & Yong

Welcome to the MADU blog

Hello everyone,

This is our new blog. We will communicate primarily through this space. Please check for updates weekly. This is even more so if there is a Yellow House activity on for that particular week.

Rajani & Yong