Conversations with Barnabas-Preschool
Today is my first day to teach at the preschool. The kids are between ages 4 and 7. We have 68 enrolled this year. I am going to show them an educational cartoon about counting to 10 created by Akili and Me.
The numbers in Kiswahili go 1-moja, 2-mbili, 3-tatu, 4-nne, 5-tano, 6-sita, 7-saba, 8-nane, 9-tisa, 10-kumi. A mission team last year installed the solar power system in the school building and I am borrow a tv to show the cartoons that I download from YouTube when in town. This will be the first time most of these kids have seen a video much less a cartoon.
After the cartoon and the other teachers constantly moving the kids around for a better view (it is 68 kids and one 24" TV), I taught a lesson on the numbers. Basically I wanted them to count each number different ways. Show me 4 fingers on one hand. Draw 7 circles on a sheet of paper. Get in groups of 5. We did these type activities mixing in crafts, blackboard and physical activities for an hour. I hope we can do this kind of thing at least once a week for a month. Then I want to do some basic math mixed in. Something like having them pair off and give one child a certain number of items and the other a different number and having them figure out how many has to be passed from one child to the other for them both to have the same number of items. Got a feeling this will take a while to get them to understand.
Next week I am teaching them shapes and fortunately Akili and Me has a video on some of the shapes as well. They also have color songs I can use.
The kids were mesmerized by the video and sat there quiet as I have ever seen them. They just watch fascinated where most kids in the state their age would start to sing along with the catchy tune. You could really tell this was something they never got to see before.
They were a little bit unsure of the various activities to count different ways. It was obvious they had not done anything but write numbers down in their books or on the blackboard. To participate in something that let them run around and still practice their lesson left them standing there confused. Hopefully after a while they will get into more and have fun and not even realize they are learning.
We played on the playground for a long time after the lesson.
While we were on the playground they were all smiles and giggles. They love having their picture taken in a group but are never sure what to do when you want to take their individual picture. One thing I love about this group is that the boys and girls and Christians and Muslims all play together not realizing in most of the world there is separation. As they get older their will be between the boys and girls in school. It is unfortunate the wide eyed acceptance of everyone even those who have damaged bodies. Several of our students are developmentally challenged and some have club feet or their legs are damaged. They jump in and run around with everyone and play.
While I was stateside, I got a new camera just to use with the kids. It is a polaroid snap which prints a 2x3 sticky back photo AND also saves a copy on a flash drive that can be downloaded later. Thanks to a wonderful donation by a family in my home church, I was able to buy enough photo paper for this camera that I took every kids picture so they could take it home or put it on their notebooks. I am putting all the pictures in this blog so you can see them all.
The numbers in Kiswahili go 1-moja, 2-mbili, 3-tatu, 4-nne, 5-tano, 6-sita, 7-saba, 8-nane, 9-tisa, 10-kumi. A mission team last year installed the solar power system in the school building and I am borrow a tv to show the cartoons that I download from YouTube when in town. This will be the first time most of these kids have seen a video much less a cartoon.
After the cartoon and the other teachers constantly moving the kids around for a better view (it is 68 kids and one 24" TV), I taught a lesson on the numbers. Basically I wanted them to count each number different ways. Show me 4 fingers on one hand. Draw 7 circles on a sheet of paper. Get in groups of 5. We did these type activities mixing in crafts, blackboard and physical activities for an hour. I hope we can do this kind of thing at least once a week for a month. Then I want to do some basic math mixed in. Something like having them pair off and give one child a certain number of items and the other a different number and having them figure out how many has to be passed from one child to the other for them both to have the same number of items. Got a feeling this will take a while to get them to understand.
Next week I am teaching them shapes and fortunately Akili and Me has a video on some of the shapes as well. They also have color songs I can use.
The kids were mesmerized by the video and sat there quiet as I have ever seen them. They just watch fascinated where most kids in the state their age would start to sing along with the catchy tune. You could really tell this was something they never got to see before.
They were a little bit unsure of the various activities to count different ways. It was obvious they had not done anything but write numbers down in their books or on the blackboard. To participate in something that let them run around and still practice their lesson left them standing there confused. Hopefully after a while they will get into more and have fun and not even realize they are learning.
We played on the playground for a long time after the lesson.
 |
| the kid in front is holding up their photo we printed using the new camera |
While we were on the playground they were all smiles and giggles. They love having their picture taken in a group but are never sure what to do when you want to take their individual picture. One thing I love about this group is that the boys and girls and Christians and Muslims all play together not realizing in most of the world there is separation. As they get older their will be between the boys and girls in school. It is unfortunate the wide eyed acceptance of everyone even those who have damaged bodies. Several of our students are developmentally challenged and some have club feet or their legs are damaged. They jump in and run around with everyone and play.
While I was stateside, I got a new camera just to use with the kids. It is a polaroid snap which prints a 2x3 sticky back photo AND also saves a copy on a flash drive that can be downloaded later. Thanks to a wonderful donation by a family in my home church, I was able to buy enough photo paper for this camera that I took every kids picture so they could take it home or put it on their notebooks. I am putting all the pictures in this blog so you can see them all.
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