What do BS Education students do? They teach, even outside of school. This summer, a BS Education student from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), Philippine Normal University (PNU), and Eastern Samar State University each held a half-day summer reading program for the kids in their respective local communities. A total of some 75 kids, whose ages ranged from 3 to 15, participated in the three events, which were held simultaneously on 9 May 2015 at Libis, Quezon City; Rodriguez, Rizal and Guiuan, Eastern Samar.

The three students organized their own workshops and designed their own activities for the kids. They each opened with a story telling activity, reading aloud from Mae Astrid Tobias’s Bayong ng Kuting (2009, Lampara) and Bakawan (2009, Adarna). Each of the kids received a free copy of the books to read along.

Bayong ng Kuting (Goodreads link) is a story about a boy and his pets. It was illustrated by Ghani Madueño and translated by Boots S. Agbayani.

Bakawan (Goodreads link) was cowritten with Catherine Yu Untalan and Reena Rae de Leon Sarmiento, and illustrated by Van Zeus Bascon. It is about “how the curious Tagak brings home not just stories from his daring travels, but strange objects from people.”

After the story telling, the kids took part in activities that mirrored the books’ focus.

In Rodriguez, Rizal, the kids made animal bookmarks and upcycled plastic bottles into piggy banks in an activity designed to teach them about recycling. Read more here.

The kids in Libis, Quezon City played Survivor and figured out how to look beyond an item’s surface use and discover their secondary purpose to survive on a deserted island. Thus, a flower vase could also be a water container, barbeque sticks could help in catching fish and cooking them over an open fire, and pillows could be used to store any food that they can gather. Read more here.

In Guian, Eastern Samar, the kids played a modified version of Jeopardy and competed with each other to answer questions about the books. Read more here.

A fourth reading activity from a fourth BS Education scholar from the University of Rizal was also held in June 2015.

Support for the college education of these four BS Education majors was made possible in part by royalties from the sale of Mae Astrid Tobias’s books.