Shining Stars, Day One

Hello everyone from Zhanjiang!!

The ZKO team arrived into Zhanjiang mid noon. With the travel part behind us, we are ready to hit the ground running. It is always good to be back in Zhanjiang and I think I can speak for the whole team when I say that we feel like we’re amongst friends with the orphanage staff.

The team had lunch and then we went over to the orphanage to see the new classrooms. The classroom has been freshly painted with beautiful pastel colors. The room is filled with lots of tables, chairs, bookshelves, toys, art equipment, etc. You name it, they have it! We let the children spend the afternoon exploring the classroom and all the toys and starting to get used to their new environment. To say they were excited is an understatement!

Our new teacher, Ms. Li, is simply perfect in every way. Every time I looked at her she was smiling. You can feel the love that she has for these children. They were extremely rambunctious and she didn’t seem to mind one bit. It was a day we have all waited for and it is even better than what I expected.

Although tomorrow is Saturday here, the team is using every bit of free time we have. We will have the preschool teachers and aides coming to our hotel and the team will begin their training. They have put together binders full of training for this new set of staff, including Chinese Sign Language, which all of the children will be taught so they can communicate with the children in their group who are deaf.

We hope you enjoy the pictures. We are so thankful to the orphanage staff for allowing us the

opportunity to share these with our ZJ friends and families. Director Su came up to the classroom this afternoon and said, “The children are all so happy, this new program is going to make such a difference in their lives. Thank you for doing this for our children.”

I know this is a short post, but I think I would rather use up the rest of the post sharing pictures of our wonderful new program. Enjoy and thank you for following along on our journey to implement the Shining Stars Preschool!

Vickie

For ZKO