So, we began our introduction week by playing plenty of games (some more games with the parachute which the children love), and some induction games to introduce Edison, our new arts practitioner into the art club team.

We also did some simple colouring in (you wouldn´t believe how much the children love colouring in, sometimes they save one and go home and come back really excited to tell us they made loads of copies!).  However, it wasn’t just any kind of colouring in, they had to think about what they want to do when they are older, which was the start to our new theme ´yo quiero ser´ (I want to be….).  We had a chat with them, asking what profession they would like to do.  Then we gave out colouring in sheets of their chosen profession.  There were many doctors, footballers, lawyers, pilots, mechanics, travel guides, teachers, sailors, fishermen and one pirate, hmmm…

The second week we discussed their chosen professions further, like what would it involve doing to be a doctor?  In Fertisa, where we have the smallest numbers we got them to draw themselves as their chosen profession on huge bits of paper.  The other groups drew themselves on small cards and the following week they made pretty borders for these and in Fertisa they made costumes out of tissue paper.  Each of the drawings in every sector were incredible and we will put the faces of each child on their drawings, which will (hopefully) give them something to inspire to ‘look who you could be´, and they can stick them up somewhere in their home to keep reminding them.

The next week of ´yo quiero ser´ we discussed how they all have great ideas in what they want to be, but what steps do they need to take to make it there?  For example, go to school, university, work hard etc etc… So we explained that in order to move onto each next step they need to study, listen to their teachers, work hard etc, and only then will they be able to take the next step.

They were really ´pilas´ (in  Spanish, this means batteries, but in Ecuador its an expression to say ´switched on´ or ´bright´, they use it a lot)… Anyway we were really impressed with their responses, even though a few were a quite surprised at how many years studying it takes to become a doctor!  So, to represent all of this we got them drawing around their feet (to represent the steps they have to take) and inside those feet, they were to draw their dreams, where they actually see themselves in the future.  Some examples of some drawings were; doctors with their own clinic, of travelling to other places, the mountains or the beach with their own houses, helping other in charities if they are rich and famous footballers, their own businesses….

To finish of the theme this week we are made little paper booklets, where they wrote down the steps they need to take to achieve their goals….