Hi-ho the dairy-o....

So, two days of Kindergarten has so far been a success! :-) I must say that the first day chaos was mostly due to it being just that - the first day back. I arrived yesterday and the teacher had left a "lesson plan" for me and the assistant. I worked on teaching about fruit and transportation, among other things. The students didn't have paper or anything in front of them, so I would draw things on the chalk board and after a lot of repetition, would bring students up to tell me what the drawings were, and to tell me the colors of the fruits. With transportation, I drew pictures of a bus, a car, a plane, a boat and two stick people walking :-) Under the bus I drew "many" stick people; under the car I drew "a few" stick people, and under the plane "a lot" of stick people. The boat only had fish :-) I explained about the sizes of each and did different hand motions with them repeating after me. So, when I would do a hand motion without speaking or point to the board, they would tell me what it was....Today we focused a lot on prepositions such as behind, in front of, between, beside, up, down, in and out. The teacher left these for me to do so I don't really have a choice but to try and follow. I decided to bring a few kids at a time up in front of the class to help illustrate each of the concepts. They really seemed to have fun while doing it. :-) The students here don't really participate until the teacher is telling them in Kinyarwanda to be loud, and my goodness, are they loud! I have to make myself not plug my ears! :-) They are sooo adorable!

Oh yes, and the alphabet. Today they all tried to sing their ABC's, but they only know the letters up to about G, and then it is a lot of garbled sounds :-) Apparently, it is not until next year that the teachers will make them know the entire thing. However, I still wrote every letter on the board and went over it forwards and backwards and then picked out individual letters and had them repeat after me. No reason why they can't start recognizing letters now :-)

Around 10am they take their snack/breakfast, so I walk around and help them open their bags of biscuits, open their thermos' and just supervise a bit while turning down the food they are all offering to me :-) After snack time is recess. The kids really do go quite crazy! I end up having three kids pulling on each arm, a couple attached to my legs - it seems in the beginning all they want t do is to play with me. :-) So I follow their lead on certain games or rhymes, many of which I have NO idea what they are singing about, but I try to pick out sounds and sing along with them; it is really quite fun! I also try to introduce a few games with them. As fun as it is, I must admit, it is really quite exhausting, too! Their enthusiasm is contagious, as is their laughter, but they drain a lot of my energy....LOL

After their recess, we come back and sing songs or play simple games. They already kind of know "Little baby spider" and "Twinkle little star." So the last two days I worked on teaching them, "The farmer in the dell..." It is taking a while for them to get the third line when it switches up, but all in all, they actually have picked up some of the words! :-) It is soooo exciting! And I have to say, too, when they sing "Little baby spider," about the only word they really do know is "WAHSED the spider out!" they sing that one word soooo loud! LOL It is hilarious! I am also trying to introduce reading after recess, but that seems to be a challenge...the teacher wanted to translate everything I was reading into Kinyarwanda so that the kids would understand. I guess I have a different perspective. I was thinking that even if they don't understand all of the words, listening to my English while I point to the pictures of what i am reading about, would be just as beneficial. I could be crazy, but younger kids here in the states are read books that they may not always know....I'll still try to get that worked in - we shall see. :-)

So, my post on Monday I mentioned that no volunteers stayed here in Kigali; that they all went to Gisenyi. However, when I got home that evening, there was a girl from Germany that stayed here for the Literacy program, teaching in a local school. She is really well traveled, having studied in Isreal and will be going to Oxford this school year, too. She will be around for one month, so we are happy to have a new face; someone to bring new perspectives. :-) That is one thing we can always relay on - our "home" is never boring :-)

Well, this is about all I have for now. I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of this week goes. I will be meeting with the Director on Monday, so by then, my days will be adjusting slightly, yet again :-)

Hugs to all!