A Typical Day at the Asilo - PART 2

*continuation of previous post*

Later we head in for some lunch, which you shouldn’t be surprised that it’s usually pasta. The kids all sit down and eat with one of the Nun’s tell a story, well, part of a story. Once she finishes most of the story, she allows a few kids to come up in front of everyone and finish it how they’d like, once again motivating creativity.

After lunch I take the youngest kids upstairs to the nap room. The walls of the room are painted with the seashore, birds, animals, and characters from fairytales. Here they each have little beds (lettini) where their sleep for an hour or so. Usually we tell a short story before they all fall asleep.

Once the little ones are fast asleep I head back down to the normal classrooms, a couple times a week I have the opportunity to teach English. Although it’s almost everyday I’m there that I’m asked: “How do you say this?” *Points to something*. 

I really love how curious all the kids are. During this “lesson” I usually introduce simple vocabulary and nothing more. They kids already know the face- nose, eyes, mouth, forehead, hair, eyebrows, cheeks, numbers- 1-10, colors, and some animals. They catch on very fast and they really make it fun for me to teach because they all want to learn!

Usually after being in the classrooms again, we head outside and play some more. Recently the kids (unfortunately) have been finding lots of strange bugs in the garden, which they bring to me, place on my hand to look at and tell them what it is. Let me be clear, as much as I love nature, bugs, and little animals, having more than three creepy crawly bugs on me is TOO MUCH!

Garden where we play for recess. (Asilo Website)

My day is almost done. I usually head out around 2pm at the earliest and 3:30pm at the latest, depending on how much help is needed as the kids begin to leave.

Yet, when it's finally time to head home, I’ve never felt so satisfied and absolutely exhausted at the same time.