Reading Buddies 9/24

When Katie and I arrived at school today our classrooms had already been weeded out, and the kids who had still not paid their school fees were sent home (like last Monday).  My numbers were a little higher than last Monday, 13/20, but still not great either. 

In math this week I was starting to teach money.  As I prepared last night I was really struggling with how to teach it, so I figured even though all of kids weren’t there, it wouldn’t hurt to go over my intro lesson twice.  So I went ahead with the lesson.  Right away I ran into a major problem.  I realized that my students don’t have number recognition beyond the number 10.  I was asking kids to read the numbers (50, 100, 200, 500, 1000) right off the coins and they were unable to.  I was completely taken aback.  How was I supposed to teach the value of coins when the students had no number recognition?!  I wasn’t sure how or what I would do, but I realized I needed to take a couple steps back in my lesson tomorrow. 

That's what you call reading buddies!

In English I was going to start teaching about clothing, but Katie and I decided to save our lessons we had planned in English for the next day and to bring our two classes together.  We got together quickly before our lessons began and paired our students up to do some buddy reading.  We did a quick little mini-lesson on how to buddy read and we let the kids try it out.  It went really well.  It took a lot of guidance getting the kids to understand exactly how buddy reading worked, but we were happy with the outcome and the kids were too.  You could tell they just thought it was so fun being with the other class.  We spent the last 10 minutes of the period taking the kids outside and doing some circle activities.  We first had the kids throw a Frisbee around and introduce themselves.  Then we played a little circle-singing-game that the kids absolutely loved.  It was fun for Katie and I to work together and do some team-teaching, and we hope to try reading buddies out again a few more times before we leave since it went so well.  

Gloria (P2) and Daphine (P1) reading together

Reading with Allan (P1) and Peace (P2)