There's no water?

An example of the exercise I had the students do

In math today I continued with a lesson I was supposed to teach a while ago (before unexpected days off), on measurement.  The focus for the lesson was for the students to use the words longer/shorter and taller/shorter correctly.  The first day I taught this it went well, but was harder than I anticipated because within the math lesson it was also an English lesson for the students.  One teaching strategy I have found that works well with my students to help them with English in math is using actions.  So I started my lesson by reviewing the actions we had made up to go with the words, and then we reviewed the language of talking about things longer, shorter, and taller.  Then we lined up (shortest to tallest of course!) to go outside.  We did a walk around the school stopping at various points and asking the students to point out things around the school using the words taller, shorter, and longer.  ALL of my students were excited to participate.  What’s more, is I had them come back in the classroom and complete an exercise related to the activity and their creativity shined through-something that is very difficult to achieve because they are so used to copying.  Most times when I ask the students to come up with their own examples, the students all copy mine.  But this time, they had all sorts of interesting ideas that they got from our walk!  I was thrilled.  Not only this, but the students enjoyed the exercise.  Several of them even insisted on staying inside to finish their work during break time.

Godwin (P2) and Jostus (P1) working on their story

Some of our boys working on their story

And English today went equally well.  Katie and I brought P1 and P2 together again.  After trying buddy reading a couple times we wanted to try doing some partner writing.  Not only did we want them to do partner writing, but also we wanted the writing to be creative, two things completely unfamiliar to them.  Katie and I knew this would require a lot of guidance.  So Katie and I did a lesson before we set them off to write pretending that her and I were partners who were going to write together.  We had a blast.  We were up there being silly, goofing, around and just having fun.  In turn, the students were laughing and were completely engaged.  We ended up writing a story about 2 rats that were named (thanks to the kids), Katie and Danielle.  As we were writing we talked about capital letters and periods (or full stops as they call it here).  We also stressed that we wanted the students to practice sounding out the spelling of words on their own-something so far from what they are used to.  This would be the biggest challenge for the students, relying on their partners rather than the teachers. .  After we finished modeling how to work together as partners, by taking turns writing and helping one another spell words and generate ideas, we set the students off to work.  We gave each pair a piece of paper (which was special in and of itself-it really is the little things that make the students here happy) with a sticker on it.  We asked the students to write a story about the animal sticker they had.  We gave them a few talking points and left the rest up to them.  The stories turned out wonderfully.  We were completely surprised and impressed by their work and creativity.  Not only did they do great work, but they also enjoyed doing it.  Several students asked to do another one, and all students were writing and helping their partners the entire lesson.  Katie and I put all the stories between two pieces of construction paper and made a P1 and P2 Animal Book. 

The book!

During games time the kids insisted we play Lion and Kob again-a game we taught them from the week before.  And then Katie and I helped Doreen and her Mom open up some of the beans they had pulled from the garden that day.  As a “thank-you” Doreen gave us some of her beans that we had for dinner that night!

Evan sitting in the book box

About to take my shower with the jerrycan

After school we did our usual shopping that we do every Monday at the market and supermarket, then we came home and did a yoga video, and had dinner.  After dinner Katie was about mid-way through her shower when she yelled to me that the water had turned off.  I went and asked Doreen and she told me the water was being shut off for everyone in town for some unknown reason.  I was a bit concerned because I was completely sweaty from the workout we did and definitely needed a shower if not that night then the next morning.  But because the water was out everywhere, we couldn’t even have some jerrycans filled up with water.  Luckily, the neighbors (some of Doreen’s family) had an extra jerrycan that they let us use.  So I was able to get a cold, jerrycan/basin shower in.  To keep in typical Ugandan fashion, we lost power and Internet as the evening went on.  So for a while we were out of power, Internet, and water.