Thibaud, Nora and Me....in the ludoteca!

What is the ludoteca Don Bosco? 

If you look in a dictionary to translate this word in English, the best traduction you will find is “nursery’”, but the ludoteca in Don Bosco is more than that. Like a nursery, it’s a place welcoming children after school (in Don Bosco we have children from 4 to 16 years old) and where they can play and have fun. But a ludoteca has also an educational purpose. I mean that children are not just left by themselves to play, the team is there to help them with their homework and to organise activities through which they learn and understand such values as team working, cooperation or participation

What are we doing here? 

In the ludoteca Don Bosco, the children are welcomed from more or less 6pm to 8pm and the time is divided in three parts:

Part 1 - During one hour they are free to play to what they want with the team playing with them. As a part of the team, our job is to play with the children outside (when the weather is nice…really rare in winter ^^) or inside (there’s loads of society games).

Part 2 - After that during a quarter of an hour, the children are gathered inside for the “Buenas Tardes”. Each two weeks we chose a topic, a value that we will explain to children through games, stories, role-plays… Whatever small activities that will make them experiment and understand the value chosen. Each day a different monitor is responsible of this time and of the activity made. As volunteers, we are really part of the team and we have to manage some of the “Buenas Tardes” 

Part 3 - It is dedicated to homework or to an activity for those who don’t have homework. The monitors are working by pairs and are responsible once a week of an activity, the others days they have to help the other children with their homework.
Thibaud is responsible for an activity of theatre and circus with Sara (a monitor from Santiago). They start with corporal expression to break the ice and build trust between the children, and later they will start real circus activities (clown, juggling...)
Nora and me are responsible of an activity of English. During two weeks we work on one topic (such as animals, colours, foods…). We use games, songs, dances, stories and videos to teach in a funny and interactive way. At the end the aim for them is to learn the basic vocabulary of each topic.

Here you can see what the ludoteca looks like !