The first day of class was an exciting day for our team's volunteer teachers !
There were 3 classes divided according to age.
Class 1(the littlest kids) was managed by Angie and Xuan Sheng, and this was their first lesson was about ABCs! Here's the lesson plan for them today: (1) went through some alphabets and their associated words (following their textbook); (2) played a game in which the kids have to retrieve the correct alphabet/word card stuck on the wall, as asked for by the teacher - it may sound ridiculously simple, but some of the kids cant tell ball from fish, so. (3) played games and sung rhymes in the afternoon.
Class 2
Class 3
The PMU Team pitched their ideas, plans for conducting 5 main workshops across 2 weeks, to Mr Jagan, the manager of the Borong Polok Paper Making Unit. The ladies also showed Mr Jagan photographs of the exhibitions(Edgeworthia Gardneri & The Sustainable Shop) held in Singapore, which involved the use of his handmade Argali Paper. It was easier than expected, for communication, as well as for his acceptance for them to carry out the activities the PMU team have planned.
With that, work started almost immediately, gathering the PMU working ladies, and the first workshop commenced, beginning with the paper pulp bead making workshop conducted by Ashley using re-pulped handmade argali paper(this was because the bark of the argali plant will take some time to soak and get beaten up before we can use fresh pulp instead to make the pulped beads, which will happen only 3 days later. The beads created were left out in the sun to dry. The rest of the team prepared cut paper strips for the afternoon workshop, which commenced after lunch.
Mandy headed the afternoon workshop- the Paper Rolled Beads workshop. The first part of the workshop covered the making of the basic bead using strips of coloured argali paper. Next, with the same strips, the PMU ladies were showed how they were able to use markers to add patterns to the bead to get a wider variety of designs using the same strips of paper.
Work begins at 9am every morning, and ends at 3.30pm everyday. The sky gets dark by about 4.30pm(and it gets even more chilly as time passed). We gathered back at Sangam Academy.
Three team members' birthdays would fall during the period of our youth expedition project, and it was actually Hiang Tee's brithday today! (Mandy's is tomorrow and Xuan Sheng's coming soon. ) We gave them a surprise birthday bash (Sikkimese style?) and that came along with some Sikkimese wine called Sailo.