Card Club (10/4)

As we were heading to school this morning we ended up passing Enoch on a boda-boda.  Looks like we were being observed today!  Enoch observed my English lesson, which went very well.  I started with a morning meeting.  Before the lesson I explained to Enoch that I would be doing a morning meeting, as it was a goal of mine to establish a good community in my classroom.  I then continued with basic health and hygiene today, focusing on the verbs that describe how we maintain our health and hygiene such as brushing, washing, ironing, etc.  We played charades again as a way to start using the verbs, and then we practiced spelling and saying the words together before sending the students off to work in their exercise books.  Enoch was very impressed with the lesson and said he thinks I have reached my goal.  He said that the morning meeting is serving its purpose, and he said the children will never forget doing this with you.  Enoch also kept telling me how creative my lesson was.  I have gotten very positive feedback from Enoch thus far, but this lesson was by far the lesson that went the best with him observing, because the lesson reflected me as a teacher, not just the curriculum.  Enoch told both Katie and I that he thinks we should stay for another 2 or 3 years and see the changes we can make in our students’ lives.    

I should also note that when we arrived to school there were kids walking away from the school-they had been sent home because their clothes weren’t clean or their heads weren’t shaved or both.  I watched 5 of my P1 students walk away smiling and waving at me, and more must have already been gone.  I couldn’t help but feel sad that they weren’t going to be learning today because of their dirty clothes or their unshaved heads.  So I only ended up having 8 students in my class for the day. 

I reintroduced measurement in math today, and returned to a structure that works best for my students, and it went much better.  I incorporated some movement so that the students could access measurement in another way.  We also did some comparisons with real life objects.  And then I asked the kids to go around the classroom and find objects that were longer and shorter and taller and shorter, and then each student shared what they found. 

During games time today I held Card Club in my classroom.  My students, and everyone in Uganda it seems, loves playing this card game that is similar to Crazy 8s.  But my students are only allowed to use the cards if a teacher brings them out.  So I have brought them out a couple times during games and have played with the kids.  Some of my boys had been asking me all week to do it and I promised them on Thursday we could play, so we did.  And now we have made it official that Thursday will be our Card Club. 

We got home from school today and the power was off, and it remained off until 9:00 pm. Kind of a bummer!