Service Learning Service Experience

Service learning provides child development students an opportunity to get along with children, and learning about the ideas on how the instructors create their lessons. In this service experience, I have learned the way that the instructors teach their lesson, a clear and interested lesson always attract children attention and have them involve in the activities. In addition, demonstration is another important factor while holding a lesson since sometimes children are unable to get the actual meaning about what to do, or they have a hard time to process the steps; then the demonstration gives children a better understanding that they can copy and do it well. My lesson of this project is “An Insight Understanding of Horses.” Project Ride’s
Project Ride is a nonprofit institution, which provides horseback riding to children with special needs, such as brain injuries, cerebral palsy, learning disabilities, developmental delay, and so on.. In this service learning project, I had an opportunity to teach and talk to the children. The children who were in my lesson would gain information about the horses’ favorite food and activities. I did know which child I would teach since Project Ride has different children in each lesson. Children come in to ride and leave in half hour. I tried to make the lesson for the children around ages five to seven. Due to the volunteer hours at Project Ride, I found out that attracting children’s attention and interests are important. Dewey stated, “he believed that the interests and background of each child and group must be considered when teachers plan learning experiences” (Mooney, 2013, p
I tried to take pictures of the horses at Project Ride so that the children would recognize the horse, and they could be able to find out their favorite horse. I did some research on what the horses eat regularly and what they usually do. I had the twin boys, who are about seven years old in my lesson. For purposes of confidentiality, the pseudonym of the children will be Jack and Jay. I made the lesson into two parts, food and activities. First, I asked the children to find a picture of horse with a name on it. They went around the arena and found the picture they were familiar. As they found the picture, they were excited and told the instructor whom they found. Next, I gave them the options. They could find out either a picture of activity or food, which they thought the horse would like. The two children in my lesson have some basic knowledge about the horse; both of them found a picture of food, hays and wheat. I had them come back to the blue barrel. I asked them, “Do you know what is this on the picture?” Jack and Jay knew the food name of the picture. I showed them a verb, likes, and put the two pictures Jack and Jay found and the verb together to see if they could tell the sentence. Jack and Jay are smart that they could say the sentence out clearly and