Brazilian au pair Camilly R. is spending her year in Myra Weinberg’s New Jersey cluster. As part of her UCLA course requirement she embraced the opportunity to present in her host kid’s 1st grade classroom about her home country. Here is an account of her experience:
“The presentation took place in the Bedwell Elementary School, in my host kid’s classroom (1st grade). I had already volunteered during recess and lunch time so the students already knew who I was and I was able to build a good rapport with them over the presentation. I experienced some technical difficulties at first with the board in their classroom but I turned the situation around and used my laptop to show pictures and everything was fine.
My presentation was about Brazil. I brought in several pictures that illustrated each topic that I was presenting. I showed them where Brazil is geographically situated, told them famous facts about Brazil and fun curiosities. I tried to make it in a way that the presentation wouldn’t just be about me talking and throwing information at them. I made sure to interact with them, ask them questions and give them the opportunity to guess the information I was about to present before I disclosed it to them. Everybody was very attentive and they all participated and seemed to really enjoy the time we had. I definitely loved the experience!! At the end, I left them with a sweet treat as a thank you for having me over and I also left them with a recipe of a famous brazilian dessert: brigadeiro. They loved it and we all had a blast!”