The third session of “Practical and Interactive Life Skills Training for Children” took place on Saturday, March 26th, 2022.

The afternoon took off with Salpi Nercessian, the Program Director. She gathered the kids with a warm-up game. Remembering each other’s name is becoming harder every week, seeing as the number of attendees is going up.

The children know that a session always starts with a period of seated exercises. They’ve all become really good at following the routine by now. Right after, they had an opportunity to share with everyone how well their week was, in terms of applying the “Golden Rule”. It was refreshing to see how honestly they had filled out their self-evaluation sheets.

In order to introduce the concept of the week, ACTIVE LISTENING, Mrs. Nercessian asked all the children to talk at the same time and she used maracas to introduce the idea of focused and attentive listening.

After a brief explanation of the idea of WHOLE BODY LISTENING and all that implies, the children had the chance to practice what they learned through a series of very interesting games. The games included were: creation of a story through continuous add-on sentences, musical chair, Simon says, telephone game, freeze and dance, as well the traffic lights game. The children were cheerfully participating during all the games, and actively practicing their listening skills.

After using up so much of their energy, the children calmed down and let their creativity run wild during the arts and crafts session.

The afternoon filled with fun and games came to an end, after listening to part 3 of the Pollyanna story. The kids are so engaged in her story, that they can’t wait for next week to hear the conclusion.

Don’t forget to stay tuned for Part 4, our last and final chapter, where the “Cooperation” skill will be learned.

 

Lara Kassarjian