Cockroach! (9/4)

Being silly for a photo!

Our day started with our first of many (to come) unwelcome visitors, a cockroach.  After the initial freak-out, Katie killed it with a shoe.  And then I was on clean-up duty.  It was a horrible, traumatizing experience, that by now (since I’m writing this almost two weeks later) happens was too frequently. 

Today at school, I spent the day observing in one of the three Nursery classes at the school.  Nursery would be like our kindergarten classes.  The class I was in was called Top, which is the last kindergarten class before entering P1.  There were only 10 of the 22 students present in this class today.  As soon as I entered the classroom the children sang me a welcome song.  This is how they great their teachers every morning in every class.  It is absolutely adorable, and I hope to get it on video someday.  In the morning I observed an English lesson where the kids were learning different vocabulary words.  The way they learn to spell them is through chanting and repetition.  For example, this is how the students went through the spelling of the word “bag”:

Jostus trying on my sunglasses (He is in my P1 class that I am now teaching in).

Teacher: “Who can spell the word bag?”

Students: (all stand) “We can spell the word bag.  It is, B-A-G. The word is bag.”

Grace, Ruthie, and Lovin. (Lovin is Doreen's daughter)

After our hour-long lunch break, the teacher whose classroom I was in told me she needed to take a lunch and that she wanted me to teach reading.  We were told that we shouldn’t be teaching the first week, and when I explained that to her she insisted that I just read the book to the class and ask questions.  So, that’s what I did, because whether or not I was supposed to, there wasn’t going to be a teacher in the classroom and I figured I would rather have the kids listening to a book than doing nothing at all. 

Throughout the rest of the day, all of the teachers were very friendly as they greeted us and asked how we were doing.  The kids are a little slower to warm up, but we were invited to play some cards during games time.  The girls also taught me their handshake.  And, we even received a few letters from students who were excited to have us at their school and who wanted to tell us about their families, while also asking questions about ours. 

After school Katie and I went for a jog.  When we returned from our jog the neighbor boys were sitting waiting for us.  They told us they had a song they wanted to sing for us.  After being just a little camera shy, they sang the song and even added in some dancing.  It completely brightened our day!  I have a video of it, but for some reason am unable to post it on here. :( I will try again another day