Woke up today with a bad sinus cold going on. It got better as the day went on seeing the beautiful faces in my new classroom. Children can always make you feel better. :) After a school morning gathering where they students sang, prayed and were praised for good work I moved to another Grade 1 teacher's classroom. I am always nervous moving into a new room but of course the friendly staff at Emifini make you feel welcome. Ms. Makasi is my new teacher that I will work with for the next two days. I just want to begin by saying she has 40 students in her classroom and it is a smooth running machine. We began with a chant counting in English and then in Xhosa. The students then used manipulatives to subtract numbers less than 20. I was surprised at how well they did with their subtraction. I was able to walk around the classroom and work with individual students on their subtraction. Then she asked me to call some small reading groups. I was in heaven. I loved it! She wanted me to use the same book for each group I called so that every child would get the same experience of the English book I was reading with them. I just made sure I changed my questioning due to the understanding I could see the students having. You see, in grade 1 they are just beginning to learn English and are still learning to read in their native language Xhosa. After leaving the school we went to another Xhosa language lesson. I have to admit I am not doing very well learning this language but am trying. I am beginning to pick up a few words that I recognize the students/teachers saying. Oh! I almost forgot to tell you... We saw monkeys, zebras and kudu just hanging out at the university. The monkeys were very close.
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| Ms. Makasi and I |
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| Working with math subtraction |
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| I thought this was a wonderful addition to her classroom. I would love it in mine. |
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| Monkeys just hanging out at the University. |
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| Monkeys - I am amazed. |
Day 18 Emifini and Xhosa
Feeling much better today! Back to Emifini. This morning there was a meeting of the teachers discussing a problem in the school. That is not the amazing part of the meeting. When the teachers have a meeting the students go on into the classroom and clean the classroom until the teachers arrive to teach. I just can not imagine this happening in the United States. I was happy to be back in class with Ms. Makasi. After some math work and xhosa reading I was again able to call students over to read an English book with me. It seemed as though they were understanding my questioning and were able to answer me correctly. I loved the small reading groups. We had to leave school early today due to our xhosa language lesson beginning early. It was nice to learn some of the "teacher" language needed to help out more in the classroom at our language lesson.
Tomorrow is Voting Day in South Africa therefore, no school and most things are closed. It would be nice to have the day off in the states on voting day. You can tell it is a very important and cherished day.
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| Ms. Makasi's class |
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| Reading groups |
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| Reading groups |
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| Our English book we read |
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