Steem Women Community|| CHAIN OF GOODNESS|| Flores De Mayo Free Summer Classes for Children
Hey Steem Women Community! How are you? This week is the second to the last week of May. Since I missed being part of this activity, likewise, this was not made possible right now because of the pandemic, I just want to share this wholesome experience.
Are you familiar with Flores De Mayo? Well, here in the Philippines, a lot of children have been looking forward with this celebration. Flores de Mayo(Spanish for Flowers of May) is a festival held in the Philippines the whole month of May as a devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. For Roman Catholics, Blessed Virgin Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ, the son of God. In line with this month-long celebration, our parish, Sto. Nino de Cebu-Mactan, will have a Free Summer Classes for children in every chapel. The catechists from the parish will recruit volunteer catechists, usually teenagers or young adults like us to teach the young ones the basic teachings of the Catholic Church such as praying the Holy Rosary. It was an honor to be part of this activity last 2015 and 2017.
Before the pandemic, the children in the Philippines were having their summer vacation every month of May. It was just the right timing to conduct the said activity within this month. We begun the activity by recruiting children to join the catechism within the jurisdiction of our chapel. Even though, the activity was made for the children, parents' consent was still a must.
The recruited children would be gathered inside the chapel and there we would do the following activities:
Praying the Holy Rosary. Before we officially start our lesson, we would choose 5 kids to lead every mystery of the Holy Rosary with our assistance.
Greetings and Ice Breaker. Children are known to be energetic so to sustain it, their ates(Filipino for big sister) and kuyas(Filipino for big brother) would prepare songs, dances, and games for them not to get bored. One way of greeting them was by saying, "God is good. " Then, they reply, "All the time." and vice versa. It was also a way for us to initiate our lesson.
Creative Lesson Proper. Well, we catered different age groups of kids for the Flores de Mayo. What we did was, we grouped them according to their ages and assigned an ate or kuya to be their teacher. The assigned ate and kuya would come up with a strategy to capture the attention of the children and at the same time inculcate learnings to them.
Snacks Time. We know for sure that children were fond of eating. Ates and kuyas prepared a simple snacks for them because they were all very good in participating on their teachers' activities. So, before every meal, we made sure that it started with a prayer.
Closing Prayer. This would be a great way to end our day. We taught the children to say a Thank You Prayer after our session.
Cleaning Time. Apart from the teachings of the Church, we taught them to clean up their mess. Of course, ates and kuyas were there to lead them.
After a month-long celebration of Flores de Mayo, the children would then take part with the Santacruzan. Little kids would be dressed as an angel and older kids would be chosen as queens such as Reyna Elena.
Then, they would be gathered at the parish for the Holy Mass and would be given some gifts for their active participation in the Flores De Mayo. The certain event would serve as their graduation for the summer classes.
Dealing with kids was a tough job yet the whole experience was quite heart melting. Until now, when they'd meet me, they remembered me as their teacher in the Flores De Mayo. I really missed doing things like that and thanks to the #SteemWomenClub for letting me reminisce these memories. Thank you for reading this far. May God bless you always!