Our Stories: Me and The Children

I want to share about my workplace practice or practical experience. I'm studying Early Childhood Education course. There is a workplace practice for this course every semester starting second semester until six semester. I'm in second semester and this is my first experience of workplace practice. There were two series of workplace practice for this semester. The first series was on 13 and 14 March 2017 while the second series was on 15 and 16 March 2017. I went for the first series which was recently.

The name of my workplace was Tabika Kemas Kenanga which at Kampung Kenak, Pasir Mas, Kelantan. It took 40 minutes to reach there from my college. Two days after knowing about my workplace, me and my friend rent a car to find our workplace together. Her workplace was also in Pasir Mas. It took almost an hour to find my friend's workplace because her workplace was a little bit far from mine. I had to drive forth and back during that day. The total journey of our workplace was an hour.

The one on the left was my friend that I went to practical with.

I was shocked to see my workplace for the first time because it quite small and was not as I expected. At first, I missed the Tabika along my way and stopped to ask the people there about it. Luckily I missed it only 100 meters away. The Tabika was small and had no space for the kids to play outside. There was also a house exactly behind the Tabika. The paint also faded and the Tabika looked cheerless and dimmish.

On 13th March, me and my friend woke up at 5 a.m and we went out of the college at 6 a.m. We reached at my friend's workplace about 6.40 a.m and performed out Fajr prayer at the nearby mosque. At 7 a.m, I went to my workplace and it took about 15 minutes to reach there. I was lost on the first day of my practical. I arrived at the Tabika at 7.30 and there was the teacher's assistant sweeping the floor. I don't know her full name but I called her Mokcik Nab. She's very kind and welcomed me warmly. I waited 30 minutes for the teacher to arrive. The teacher arrived at 8 a.m and her name was Puan Che Anah. She also welcomed me warmly and bought me nasi kerabu for breakfast.

With Puan Che Anah (in the middle) and Mokcik Nab.

The students arrived around 8.30 a.m. They were quite shy at first when they saw me. There were only 10 students out of 18 that came that day. There were four and five years old students. I started to teach at 9 a.m. Before I started to teach, I played a Doraemon song to make them interested and paid attention to me. They were enjoying the song and sang along. I teached them about shapes which were circle and pentagon. The gave a good respond and I was very happy because they started to pay attention and interested in me. We sang and dance together and the children were very excited and happy. There was also an identical twins brothers among the children! Actually they are triplets with two boys and a girl but the girl schooled somewhere else. They were really kind and like me. They love to hold my hand and smiled at me. Before the class ended, I prepared a traditional game for the children to play which was 'Nenek Si Bongkok Tiga'. They were really excited to play but I was really stressed because the some of them who became the 'nenek' did not move to find and guess the grandchild. They were standing still and just holding the stick and I had to make them to move. It was quite hillarious for me.

With the twin.

The children were playing 'Nenek Bongkok Tiga'

They were dancing and singing along to the songs.

I went back early that day because I had to fetch my friend at her workplace. When I was about to go, the children ask me, "Teacher, do you already want to go home?" "Will you come back again tomorrow?" . I was really glad that they wanted me to come again to meet them.

On 14th March which was the last day, some of the children came early and the parents said that their children told them to come early today because the new teacher said so. I laugh and glad because the children were excited to meet me. As usual, before class started, I played some songs and the children danced and sang along. Most of the songs were from Didi & Friends which was a children tv show.

On that day, I teached them about feelings of anger, happiness and sadness. I also brought them the emojis of the feelings. They were really excited. I also brought playdough for them that I made by myself. I asked them to make anything by using the dough and they again they were excited to play with it. They kept calling me and showed what they had made eventhough I dont even know what they created and talked about it. I was happy to see them having fun that day.

Before I went home, I prepared gifts for the children, Puan Che Anah and Mokcik Nab. I bought cute bottles for the children and tupperware for Puan Che Anah and Mokcik Nab because tupperware is important for mothers I guess? Hahaha.

I was really sad to say goodbye to the children because they were cute and so nice to me. I thought the practical will not going well but it went well and I'm really glad. I'll makesure that I'll will go and visit them again in the future because I already miss them!