Wednesday, August 22, 2012

A Week in Review

We near the end of another successful week!
This week’s theme is animals. Students have painted pictures of elephants, molded various animals out of clay, and made collages of lions using seeds and pencil shavings. This theme will be further reinforced by an upcoming field trip to a nearby game reserve!
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Puzzle: Accomplished!

The grade R daily schedule is: brush teeth, practice ABCs, themed activities, play time, music movements, puzzles/story time, dismissal. There are slight modifications each day, but the overall structure remains constant.


IMG_1163-2012-08-22-17-03.JPGIMG_1161-2012-08-22-17-03.JPGToday being Thursday, I pulled students out in groups of 3 for a laptop lesson. We typed ‘abc123’ and ‘apple’. The excitement of using computers was still clearly there! Several students were noticeably faster at finding the keys, and helped others accomplish the task. Progress was slow, but I suspect these lessons will be well worth it.





Thursday is also a day for religious studies, where Brother Josias comes and shares a story from the bible. Today’s lesson was on the woman who was healed from bleeding by touching Jesus’ cloak.                                                   IMG_1147-2012-08-22-17-03.JPG
Josias told the story in English and discussed it in Xhosa. I found myself just as engaged as the students were, trying to understand what he was saying. Our school’s dual language lessons have been helpful to both me and the students!

I had a moving discussion with the monks earlier today about these childrens’ home lives. We did not go too deep, but the insight I gleaned on their physical, emotional, and medical problems was touching. Truly, an act as small as helping someone finish a puzzle can be a highlight of their day.

Thanks so much for reading, and I wish you a blessed day.
In Christ,
-Cameron

1 comment:

  1. What sweet faces, Cameron. I know they enjoy the personal attention and enthusiasm (I'm assuming you are very excited about the knowledge you bring). Glad to hear also that they have a varied curriculum with different parts of the brain in play.

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