Gezegend . . . Gesegnetes . . . Blessed 2020

Teaching . . . and Learning to Teach . . . at Home

How many kids live in your house? Enough to start a club?

A couple we know have that many in house, though they only have two children themselves. We'll call them Silvia and Eduard. Before Eduard married, he helped in his own Romany village with the first field trial of the Parent-Child Club. Now that he is a parent, he and his wife have started doing Parent-Child Club activities . . . in their own house.

This house has three rooms. A different family lives in each room. All together, there are 9 children roaming around, ages 13 to infant (Eduard & Silvia have two, under the age of 2.) So Eduard and Silvia were very open to trying out Parent-Child Club activities in their own home. Eduard's sister Aliona helps.

And in between the Friday afternoon activities, the children go on playing the games themselves!
Interested in learning more? Check out the Parent-Child Club activities in English or Romanian. (Dutch language version available upon request.)

Toys library

Another project welcomed in Rroma communities is „toys library”, which offer a warm environment for children to explore new toys, new games and new ways of spending time.

These „libraries”  offer a warm environment for children to explore new toys, new games and new ways of spending time.

Through this project children can experience different roles through play. They can also socialize in a positive environment with children of the same age or different age. The children and their families can observe how to keep toys tidy and organized at home. Part of that is learning rules, like each time when you finished playing with something, it needs to be  put back, properly. Children also learn how to handle things respectfully:  toys are never thrown;  we can harm others by doing so (and destroy the toy!).

By playing, children can learn all sorts of different problem-solving strategies. Play facilitates  language development. Play leads to developed social skills. The toy librarian can increase the complexity of playing. The librarian can help children to move beyond simple and repetitive ways of playing, through his own intervention and example of using the toys.

The program can be implemented in Rroma communities following some concrete rules:

-        the families have to book their time to play inside the library, before they visit it.

-        only those families which proved, while their children were playing there, that they can handle the toys responsibly may take them home for a limited time. This is similar to checking out a book at a regular library.

-        the number of families that can visit the library at the same time should be limited, perhaps to no more than 4 or 5. This will help the librarian to keep in charge and under control the activities inside of the „toys library”.

To have a clue how this works, follow the link below: Playing as a Gateway to School and Inclusion.

ambulatory library

An ambulatory library can take many forms.  

We are happy to see this practical example  from Columbia:

(https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p063zy12/biblioburro-the-amazing-donkey-libraries-of-colombia).

 Children have a special day of reading books, when the librarian reaches their village!