June 1st is designated as International Children's Day in Vietnam and lots of other countries. In order to make the celebration this year the best possible, the Foundation of Hope project team came to the village a day early to prepare the stage and on the day of the event, we helped the staff watch over the children and keep them company.
Handbook & Friendship Bracelets
Each child was given a handbook to use throughout the project. On Thursday, 6/2/2016, the children started working on the first few pages of the handbook. They were excited to have polaroid pictures of themselves because they have never seen a polaroid camera before! Besides writing and coloring, the children also learned a few simple English words as the handbooks are in both Vietnamese and English.
Afterwards, the children and volunteers made friendship bracelets as a symbol of their strong connection!
Sticker Hunt
Children completed 3 different activities: Animals Around You, Puzzles/Blocks, and Cooking in order to collect their favorite stickers! These activities helped the children identify wild animals versus domestic animals, enhance visual perception, and learn the tastes of different food.
Flag Making
The children enjoyed a fun group activity: Flag Making. Even though drawing and coloring are not new activities, it was refreshing and exciting to be able to do them on a flag instead of on paper. Teamwork has never been highlighted at school in Vietnam so this activity was meant to help the children become more comfortable with working in a group. Everyone was very satisfied with their group effort! A lot of the team members were not in the pictures with the final products but rest assured that all of the finished flags are with them at the village.
Morning Exercise
Each morning, the project team showed up at Thanh Xuan Peace Village at 7:30AM for a brief meeting then we all came outside and did morning exercises with the children. The exercises are always accompanied by a fun song and sometimes we would all dance together. For some volunteers, this is their favorite part of the day.