1st DAY at the BFS

I’ve got a volunteering in the Brooklyn Free School. I’ll spend around two months working (playing!) close to kids from 6 to 8 year-olds. The idea of doing this is to have a closer understanding of children’s cognitive and motor skills.

Last week being in my first volunteering day we went with the kids to the Imagination playground. Here is the feedback I got so far:

1. They don’t have learning rules. They learn what and when they want. “It makes them be extremely creative” — says Liz, their teacher advisor. “They always come up with new things to do, even when they have been using the same materials over and over”
2. One of the kids, tend to be introverted. Compare to other kids he spends less time sharing and playing with other kids. “Especially if the group is outside the school” “But, he is brilliant building things, he loves to use blocks”
3. Most of them speak a second language (Spanish, French or Japanese)
4. Four hours in the playground and they always kept playing, jumping, running and building. (At the end of the day I felt like I had run a marathon)
5. They have amazing communication skills. Their ability to convey ideas, thoughts by using appropriate language structures (it makes feel jealous!).