Currently back
home for my semester break, which is 2 weeks only. What I hate about it is that
they included the Chinese New Year holidays into my hard-earn-ever-longing break,
making it shorter. It wasn’t the original plan and don’t get me started on how
everything ended up this way. To be honest, it doesn’t feel like I’m having a
break, more like a public holiday with festive mood.
(a cartoon from the net)
This time, I shall
share a little on my experience regarding the visit to a local kindergarten
some time back in November. I will only give the gist of what happened; there
were too many things going on that time. This was part of our work for
community dentistry posting. Our job going there was to give oral hygiene
instruction (more like education) to the kids. And so for the visit, we took a
week to get our preparation done. We had to create nametags, find a practical
song to teach, come up with a sketch, make an activity booklet and prepare the
quiz; in short, many running around to do. The team work was very good I would
say. We really had a good laugh during the rehearsal the night before our visit.
Shall share the summary to our group report below:
On the 23rd of November 2012, we, students
from Group A of Batch 2 BDS MMMC paid a visit to Tadika Generasi Cilik at
Durian Tunggal as a part of our community dentistry health camp program. The
group was comprised of a total of 12 members.
Matron Zainah was with us throughout the visit. We
departed from the college at 2.30pm. There was a college van prepared for us.
It took around 15 minutes to reach the kindergarten.
We were warmly greeted by
the children and teachers upon arrival. There were a total of 36 children that
turned up that day. The youngest child was 2 years old with the oldest at 8.
They were all comfortable in speaking the Malay language.
All the activities were carried out indoor, in the
main hall of the building except for the tooth brushing session. There were a
total of 4 short activities that were carried out that day. They are:
1. Icebreaking
Song
2. Short
Sketch
3. Q
and A session
4. Tooth
brushing session
Upon arrival, the children were
all hype up and welcomed us warmly. They weren’t feeling shy or afraid to
approach us. Farah was in charged to start off the day. We first tried to make
the children settle down and sit down. The teachers were very helpful to
control the situation. They presented a few songs to us as some of us were
getting ready for the following activities. After a round of self-introduction
by the members of the group, we distributed the nametags that were specially
made by the group. We wrote the names of each child on it and helped them wear
it around their neck. It was meant as a door gift and serve to help the
children to get comfortable with our presence there. All I can say, they love
it. Really need to thank Bhai and Chien Ying; they were in charge of making the
tags.
We then move on to teach the song. The melody was taken from the famous
nursery rhyme “Here we go around the mulberry bush”. The lyric was simple. “Ini
cara berus gigi, Berus gigi (x2), Berus setiap hari.” We tried to make them do
the circular motion while singing, but it sort of didn’t work out.
After rounds and rounds of singing the song, it was the sketch team turn
to do their thing. It was really funny, but as in class, some kids were
attentive, some were not interested. The quiz then followed, asking things that
were shown or taught in the sketch. The reward for answering- a limited edition
tooth sticker of your choice.
We moved into the last segment of our visit, to teach them to brush
properly. Since there weren’t enough giant models, our acrylized denture from
second year came into handy. We each took a small group of children,
demonstrate the Fones technique. They were kind of fascinated by the denture.
Later, the teacher made them lined up while we distribute the Colgate
samples and paper cups to them. There’s a toothbrush and toothpaste inside the
sample. All were then lined up next to the drain, brushing their teeth. We each
monitored a few kids.
After that, Naurah and Myra handed out the booklet. Some were really
excited and started colouring right after that.
There was tea prepared for us
from the management. We had a photo freeze time during then.
It was quite a success. Matron was really happy with our job and we
really had fun. I feel this is really a better way to reach out to the
community about oral hygiene care rather than just waiting for them to arrive
at the clinics and instruct them later.
So there you have it~
Ps: Happy Chinese New Year btw~
