The art of teaching..

This week has been so fun as far as teaching goes! The class has dwindled a little since testing is over. We usually have 40 students, but on Monday and Tuesday we had 24. Today we had 16 students. It is definitely easier to manage all the students when there is less of them. I have so much respect for the teachers at Emafini just for being able to handle that many students at one time. I got confused often when I had to take them to the bathroom. There was no way for me to keep track of all the students! This week we have taught the whole day. We usually only teach math, and literacy because like skills is taught in Xhosa.  Here is a wrap up of what we've done this week.

Monday- We read a book called Mup's days of the week and had the students arrange the days of week in the correct order. When they were arranged we had them figure out what day's of the week Mup did certain activities. We discussed the activities, and that led to us teaching about action and descriptive words. We had the students act out the different actions that Mup went through during the week. When we introduced descriptive words the students had trouble understanding the concept. I had them describe different animals and made a list of the words on the board. They described lions as big, mean, loud, and brown. After we made several lists, the students still could not tell us an example of a descriptive word. This could've been from misunderstanding or the language barrier. After our break, we sung the songs Hokey Pokey, If You're Happy and You Know It, and The Wheels on the Bus. We let different students lead each time.


Tuesday- We did a review on Mup's days of the week. We then reviewed action and descriptive words. The students once again were to told act out different action words. This went a lot better than Monday! We had several students come to the front of the classroom to act out actions without our help. We did estimation and measurement for math. We had the students estimate the length of their name tags and desk. After they made an estimate, we had them measure with bottle caps. The bottle caps are the only math manipulatives they have in their classroom. In the beginning, most students tried to measure their whole desk, but we quickly reiterated the directions. We had the estimations written on the board, so Gareth made a chart with the actual measurements and we compared the two. There were still a few that we had  to go around and help. We then had the students estimate and then measure their heights by using their own feet. After break we did the calendar songs (month of the year, days of the week), The Wheels on the Bus, and their FAVORITE Hokey Pokey!


Wednesday- We tried buddy reading, and it went GREAT. We had Chelsea's fifth graders help or second graders read in English and Xhosa. I was honestly shocked at how well it went. I thought it would be chaotic! They did buddy reading in groups of 3 or 4. It went so well that it continued for an hour and a half. We had to let our second graders take a bathroom break and a stretch break. Students volunteered to read one of their stories aloud to the class. After we took our students back to the classroom we had a short discussion on their thoughts about buddy reading. They all liked it, and said they wanted to do it again! I think it is something that they should look into doing at Emafini. After the break, we had them practice their directional words by making a beat in a circle on the floor.

Thursday- We had a break from teaching to go observe at other schools. It helped open my eyes a little more about the past of South Africa. I will save this topic for another blog.

Friday- Today we only had 3 students in our classroom, so we decided to combine classes. We still didn't have a lot of students, so we decided to make it a fun day. We stayed outside and played different games with them. We did a relay race and played leap frog, follow the leader, telephone, love tunnel, and red light/green light. We also played a game in Xhosa. We took them inside and played smiley face man(aka hangman). It was sad when we left today because we don't know who we will see next week. We gave them hugs and told them we would see them on Monday, but we know that they more than likely will not be there. It was really sad. One student who hugs me everyday gave me her picture and address on the back! I promised to write her and send her a picture.

Animals from Addo Elephant Park

Weekend: short, but a lot of fun!

Aghhh. The weekend always bring so much! After the long day Friday of visiting the homes we ended it by having a brie(cookout) at our principal's house. It was a lot of fun. I ate lamb, which was very tasty. It was good to be around our partnership teachers outside of school and learn more about then. We danced all night!!

Saturday- we visited Addo Elephant National Park. I was so ecstatic when I saw the lion just laying down in the grass. Our tour guide told us he hadn't seen the lion in months, until a couple of weeks ago. We saw all types of animals. The birds that we saw were so beautiful. It's amazing how close the animals can get to you. I really like that they were free to roam around. Not once did I feel like I would be harmed. Seeing animals in their natural environment is definitely a big change from seeing them in a zoo. The scenery in the park was absolutely gorgeous! I can see why it is a National Park. Also, the food that they served was delicious. I've been sticking to the same thing most places, but everywhere I go it tastes different.


Sunday- It was a very early morning on Sunday. All of the girls in the group did a walk/run 5k. Four of us walked and the other two ran. Walking was a bad choice on my part. I'm not a fast walker, so I should've done the run so that I could've had a choice. I still enjoyed it though! When we got back to our B&B (bed and breakfast) the power was off! So most of us just took a nap while our  power problem got worked out. After the nap, we had dinner and started planning for this week.