Monday morning at 8:30am I was standing in a room with 20 students and one teacher getting ready to give my first presentation completely in Spanish at La Chapa. La Chapa is a small school with only one classroom about a 30 minute ride from San Miguel. The community is surrounded by breathtaking views and lies right along the river, similar to San Miguel. When I entered the classroom on Monday morning I was greeted with a welcome song from all the children…this definitely took some of the butterflies in my stomach away. I had Erin, Lillian (Senora Dienete) and Miriam with me to help me with my presentation. I started and introduced Senora Diente (Lillian was dressed up as a tooth) and had all of the kids make their very own Senora or Senor Diente. This was a fun activity that was perfect to do with a school with only 20 children.
After the children finished I explained to them the importance of dental hygiene.
Salud Bucal es muy importante porque bacterias pueden crecer en la boca. Necesitas cepillarse sus dientes con un cepillo de diente y pasta de diente y usar hilo dental.
Senora Diente and I did a little skit to teach the students how many times a day you should brush and floss.
Necesitas cepillarse sus dientes tres veces a dia con pasta de diente (en la manana, tarde y noche). Necesitas usar hilo dental un vez a dia.
Following, I went over how to brush and floss, with a little help from Miriam whenever she had some extra tips to give the students!
Cepille sus dientes pos dos minutos tres veces cada dia con un cepillo de dientes. Cepillarse los dientes de abajo hacia arriba para eliminar las bacterias. Cepille tu lengua para eliminar lasbacterias…
After I presented all of the information to them I gave them a gift bag with toothbrushes, toothpaste, dental floss and informational flyers for both them and their family.
At the end of the presentation the teacher asked us to come back once a week for an hour to teach the students English. Erin and I will now be traveling to La Chapa on Monday afternoons to teach in this school too. The children were such a pleasure to work with for the Dental Hygiene presentation and I am looking forward to going back again next week.