Connect the Dots

June 20th, 2008 by ehamsher

Osiibye otya nno! (Good evening to you)
Hope everyone is doing well. I don’t have too much to update, it has been a fairly uneventful past couple of days. Just wanted to touch base while I was on the net. Classes have been going well at Our Lady. We spent the last two days doing connect the dots with our P2’s and P3’s, and writing short stories with our P4 class. The kids loved the dot to dots, despite some trouble grasping the idea that you had to connect the dots in numerical order to actually make a picture. We had the kids work in pairs or threes to work a bit on group work, something that is rare in the classroom. The kids often copy one another’s papers, but to actually be allowed to work together as a team is not common. After the kids finished making the pictures with the dots we let them color them in. One of the teachers that Gen and I really get along with asked us for the pictures once the kids completed them. She wanted to hang them up on the walls of the school buildings to show the parents when they came to visit. See, African schools aren’t that much unlike our own!
The kids almost have itsy-bitsy spider down. I’m hoping to record them singing it on video on my camera sometime before I leave. It’s pretty precious. When Gen and I are left with a few extra minutes at the end of class we have taken to asking for a volunteer to come up to the front of the class and sing the song by themself. The kids were reluctant at first, because public speaking skills aren’t enforced in any way, but once we started bribing with stickers the kids frantically try to get picked to come to the front. You’d be amazed at the power of stickers in the African classroom. I’m fairly confident I could get these kids to do anything if I stuck a gold star sticker on their forehead.
For now I’m off. I need to run to the post office as well as the bank to exchange some cash. Gen, Yui, Tama and I are all going on safari this weekend. We leave Saturday night and stay in a hostel in Kampala that night, then leave early Sunday and safari until Tuesday. We’ll stay at different campsites Sun-Tues. I’m excited to see all the animals, everyone who has been on safari before has highly recommended it. I’ll try and update briefly Saturday when I’m in Kampala, but if I don’t get a chance I’ll write Tuesday, so no worries. Love you all. Kleraba! (Bye-Bye!)

Last 5 posts by ehamsher

This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 1:30 pm and is filed under Uganda.

A Global Volunteer Network Initiative: http://www.volunteer.org.nz