The Adams' serving in the Baltic Mission do a great blog and shared the idea of teaching square dancing. They taught the Young Adults at a conference and we decided we could teach our English class! So we gave it a try. Remember, we teach handicapped students and they did so well! We were very proud of them!
This dance is the "Heel and Toe Polka" and, even though they didn't always want to dance with the next person in the circle, they always found a partner and danced away!
These two did a pretty good job considering the boy, Augi, doesn't have a very long attention span. But he sure loves to be involved in whatever we are doing. He is our "green" boy and the one who loves Alan so much! His partner, Sala, is now going to a regular school. We miss her, but she is doing very well there and we are happy for her!
You will notice they are not all at the same place in the dance. Hylan (in the pink) is deaf and can't hear the music! The others don't have any excuse except they are just doing their own thing....and lovin' it!
We invited some of the Young Women from the branch to come one day to help us teach the "Right and Left Grand.! We had tried it several times before and, while some of the kids sort of got it, we really couldn't get it to work like it should because all of them didn't get it!
So these three YW came to help. We did the "Heel and Toe Polka" first and the kids loved having helpers.
We never did get the right-and-left-grand thing to work! Even when half of us knew what we were doing, we just couldn't shepherd the other half to be in the right place at the right time!
The kids at the school love Puje! She is so good to them and loves them in return! She is amazing and wonderful....and I can't even begin to write all the good words about her and how much we appreciate her! Her partner is Bolgormaa who is really getting into this dance!
One of our new members, Erdene, is on the right. She and her friend, Otgondulam, introduced the church to two of their friends who were baptized last week. They are great little missionaries!
The one on the right here is Namyyn, who was just baptized. She is a wonderful girl and is always very willing to help--whether it be with this class, clean the church, whatever!
Otgondulam is in the pink. She is a new member and one of our great little missionaries. These girls are so amazing to watch change as they take the gospel into their lives and live its principles!
We really had a great time doing these dances and the kids were supposed to be learning how important it is to know their numbers and to do the dance steps by counting in English. There was an English teaching motive behind the madness of teaching dance in an English class! They were also supposed to learn right and left, but the-right-and-left grand wasn't too successful in teaching that concept.
One day we got permission from the school administration to teach the other class and the teachers the dances we are learning. Unfortunately, the younger class didn't do too well--they had a good time but didn't really get the idea of the step sequence. The teachers did fine though! It was fun.
We also taught numbers up to 12 in English. They know them pretty well because of their cell phones, but we created a Number Book with a page for each number which they traced and then practiced writing. They really enjoyed doing the book. One girl reported that she took it home and is now teaching her little brother his numbers in English!
Anyway, I created a BINGO game using only 3 squares across and numbers only to 12. They did pretty well, but I think most of it was number recognition and some, but not all, can actually say the English numbers? This boy, Bilgee, just got a BINGO and was pretty excited. He's one of our more advanced students and can count backwards from 12. He was moved to a more advanced school as well, but his vision is so poor he couldn't see the blackboard and so returned to us. We were so glad!
They were pretty intent on watching their cards. And the game was so easy that I had to modify it and take the FREE space out of the middle. Some of them were getting BINGO in just two numbers, so we had to make it a bit more challenging. Purvee, Hylan and Ulyzi.
Augie loves to have his picture taken. He required quite a bit of help with his card. Bilgee has difficulty with his hands and couldn't pick up the small pieces to cover the numbers. So we improvised and used bottle caps. It worked great and he loved being able to cover the numbers by himself!
In case you can't tell, we love our English teaching opportunity at the handicapped school. These kids are so amazing and so anxious to learn and get so excited about the least improvement in themselves or in their classmates. We probably have learned more from them than they have from us.
We have also been learning numbers from 1-12. The Skip Bo cards came in really handy. Each student could have their own set to put in order. Bilgee can even count them backwards.
One of our 16-year-old students, Shuree, is blind and was recently asked by the school administrator to help another 10-year-old blind girl learn how to read and write in Braille. She accepted and now comes to school an hour before her English class to teach Braille. We looked in the classroom the first day and this is what we saw:
It was a pretty tender scene with her arm around her and guiding her fingers along the raised bumps on the paper which she was also reading with her fingers. These kids are truly amazing--not only their abilities but their compassion and encouragement for each other!
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