Today was a long day. We left for the school at 8:00 and arrived home at 7:00 this evening. We finished observing the classes today. We started in Top Class (Kindergarten) with teacher Peninnah. There are two teachers named Peninnah. They call them Peninnah A (Top Class) and Peninnah B (Baby Class). In the Top Class they were reviewing the letters S and T today. There was an exercise written on the board that the teacher would lead and the children would repeat. Peninnah gave each of us a chance to lead the class through the exercise. Lots of giggles ensued:-)

We then moved to P3 with teacher Florence and watched as she taught a lesson on fractions. Next was P4 and teacher Anna. She is a wonderful teacher; very energetic and engaging with the students. She was teaching the students how to measure the length of the radius and diameter of a circle. Anna and Carrie have struck up a friendship. Anna asked if Carrie could visit her home so she could meet her friends. Anna has told all of them about Carrie and how she is always happy:-) The last class that we observed was P5 with headmistress Sarah. She was teaching a lesson on reading and reading comprehension. One of the struggles that the teachers mentioned early on was that they could not afford "reading books" for each of the students. So instead of the students reading out of the books, the teachers have to write the entire passage on the blackboard for the students to read. The students are still learning, but it is more time consuming.

Wilson said that they would like to have us teach a lesson in each of their classes as well. Once we finished in the P5 class, we went to our "office" for some debriefing and planning. Instead of trying to teach a lesson out of their curriculum, Carrie is going to develop lesson plans around our American culture such as geography, seasons, agriculture, etc. We obtained markers and poster-board and Carrie is going to create a poster for each class that can be added to their charts. Julene is itching to talk with the students as well so she will be talking with a few classes about her life. Trevor, with the help of Wilson, will begin to meet with each of the students that the teachers have identified as having learning difficulties in hopes of gaining a better understanding of what the issues may be.

One last thing. Teacher Peninnah A brought us a jackfruit today. This is perhaps the strangest looking fruit I have ever seen, but it was very tasty! Grace also brought us a sugar cane (the entire cane was over six feet long). We will be trying that tomorrow:-)

Follow this link to read Julene's blog entry for today.