All Smiles!

As I reflect back on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week I see those sweet grade 3 faces in my head and the excitement I receive each day that I walk in to see them eagerly awaiting Emily and I. We are greeted by hugs and give out numerous high fives and thumbs up during the day! As I sit here and write this I can’t help, but to smile! I cannot sit here and say that there are not challenges throughout the day, but I can say the positives out way the challenges in every circumstance that I face here.

On Monday morning just like in the States it is hard for me to get out of bed! I think that each day I sleep walk through my morning routine, eat a delicious breakfast that is always prepared, and more often than not I take a quick 15 minute nap on the way to school. However, that struggle of waking up in the morning quickly fades away as soon as I walk in to the doors of Emafini Primary School. Often my students run to greet Emily and me before we make it out of the office with huge smiles ono their face.

This week at Emafini has been a bit different from the previous weeks. Many of our learners have not come to school this week. While it is sad that all of our students have not been in the classroom, it has given us time to work with students in smaller groups and a little more individualized attention than they are use to. Our week started off wonderfully with about 30 students. We did circle time at the beginning of the day were we sang some songs and did a few activities just to get the students brain’s warmed up. Once we finished we did a read aloud with the students. We talked about various parts of the story and really tried to work with them on some comprehension strategies. Any activity that they loved was making a decorative name tag for them self. I know that you might be wondering why in the world we would have them create name tags this week! Well let me just tell you that this activity was so important because these learners name were very difficult to pronounce for me, making it nearly impossible to remember! It was so much fun! We learned so much about the students and I really can’t describe how excited they were to use the construction paper and crayons that I had brought with me! I think that they would have sat and colored right through break if we would have let them!

Tuesday we had a smaller group of about 25. However, it was such a great day just like Monday! It was wonderful to have the opportunity to do engaging lessons with these students! I know that they were learning and really enjoying every second of our time together! My favorite part is reading to them because they are so absorbed in any story that you pick up and will read to them! We had them draw pictures of their favorite setting from the story that we read that day and write a sentence! This assignment took a little longer than anticipated but that is okay. They all turned out wonderfully! We have such great artist in our classroom. It just brings me such joy to pull out the simplest things from my bookbag in the mornings, like crayons and construction, and see the excitement on their faces! This is something that will never get old and I will never forget.

A Future SA Teacher!

Story Time with Ms. Emily!

 Wednesday our numbers continued to creep down and we probably had about 20 students. This was the day that we were going to attempt to write letters back to Ms. Emily’s class in the States because they had written letter to the S.A. students. This was a challenging activity! We did a group lesson on how to write letters, topics you could write about, and the format of a letter! They seemed to be understanding and we moved on to the actual writing. Some did it with, but most students had a difficult time with this task. I think that the difficulty could have been due to the language barrier for some students. However, we helped the students work in small groups and we made sure that each and every student had the opportunity to write a letter. For a few students this meant that they had to dictate their letter to me and I wrote it for them! However, I was so proud of them and the way they always did their best and never gave up!

Beautiful Setting Pictures!

Their smiles, excitement, joy, laughter, eagerness, love, hugs, and sweet ways will continue to bring me joy and encouragement for a long time! They have each touched my heart in their own special way!