Monday, August 11, 2014

This is why I am here!

Wow!  I have been holding off blogging about our time with the teachers becasue I have really not had all of the words to say.  Over the course of the week, the teachers would arrive each day dressed in their Sunday best with the notebooks and pens ready to learn.  Each time something new was said that struck a cord with them, you would see their eyes light up and their smiles grow wider.  We spent lots of time working on kinesthetic learning as the auditory and visual are already part of their class environments.  They loved the activities and seemed very ready to be able to use them in their classrooms.  We had each teacher make cards for their classes (alphabet cards for the younger kids, definition cards for science and social studies, and math facts for the math teachers.)  We taught the teachers how to play matching games, memory (their favorite), and other games using their cards.  We also taught them about having the kids who finish their work early being able to have access to the cards to work on while their peers finish.  Another objective of ours is to get books into the classroom.  As a mostly oral culture, reading is not something that is seen as necessary.  We taught read alouds, comprehension with reading, and incorporating reading into a lesson.  One day we read a fiction and non fiction book about rockets.  Then we got to go participate in a lesson about rockets.  Finally we taught the writing process on how to write your own paragraph on what was learned.  WOW!  We also discussed the importance of movement and brain breaks in a lesson as well as learning how to play the game BINGO and the many uses for it.  I feel as though I am learning patience, humility, gratitude, professionalism, commitment, and respect through my new friends at Musana.  One day the headmaster was not able to be in on the trainings.  He sent this message to his staff through the head teacher Muza, "I apologize that I will not be in attendance today.  Please though represent me and this school as well as you can during your time with our visitors today."  Those teachers represent their school so well (and I later learned that most of them are under 25!)


Enjoying some time together after class!

We were learning about having book buckets in your classroom for books that the children can read.  When it rained, we used the book buckets to protect our hair!

Musana's head teacher, Muza!

 
 
 
 
   


Writing a non fiction paragraph about rockets.

Word wall and a graphic organizer for writing!
Introducing the concept of kinesthetic learning!

BRAIN BREAK!!


The many things you can do with note cards!

Alphabet BINGO!

Having fun with the paper that we punched the BINGO tokens out of!

Reviewing our day and setting the stage for the next day!

2 comments:

  1. Would it be a good idea to collect books for Musana? I have a few children's books I had planned to take to the used bookstore. But...I can send them to Musana instead.

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