The Operations of Reach Out

The operations team is make up of 5 education majors, and our objective is to create a sustainable curriculum for the child development centers in the DR based on their needs while creating partnerships locally.
At our last meeting, we decided on three areas of curriculum to focus on based on our feedback from Paquita. These areas are technology training, basic English education, and activities to make learning fun for students. Because the students have computers at the centers but little knowledge about how to use them, we will create referral manuals on basic internet skills and word processing for ages 7-10 and 11-15. In addition, we would like to obtain a Spanish typing program by donation to improve the students' typing skills.
For English education, we will be teaching basic words and phrases focusing on five broad areas: classroom objects, things at home, weather and seasons, technology words, and food. The centers are interested in materials that can be reused numerous times, so we would like to have information for the teachers as well as several activities (flashcards, games, etc.) for every topic.
We plan to make bilingual labels for classroom objects (clock, door, etc) and large dry erase calendars among other things.
We have utilized our partnership at Grace B. Luhrs Elementary School by organizing a school supplies drive called Gift of the Heart. The school PTO (Parent Teacher Organizaion) will purchase materials like pencils and notebooks that the students can then purchase at the school store and give as a donation to the children in the DR. PTO will sew bags to make individual kits for the students, which we will then pack in our luggage. The store will be open from November 10th until the 16th. We also invite students to come to Dominican Day on November 17th, as Strategy explained below. Everyone at the school is enthusiastic about the project and the partnership.