Sunday Fun-day Pictures 17-April-2016

So if you read my last post, I had a bit of a rough couple weeks. This past Thursday I woke up a bit on the wrong side of the bed so I instantly popped in my headphones for the walk to school. The moment I arrived to school I'm greeted with a crowed of grade 0 (kindergarten) learners adorable as can be just wanting to say hi and give high 5's. That's all it took to turn my frown upside down and bring my day to a brighter start. I mean look at them. How can you not smile back at these cuties?

FLASHBACK!!!!!!

Some of you may have seen in my post a few months ago that my host family surprised me with a puppy. At the time of the post I thought Hafa was a girl. Turns out Hafa is a boy. He's healthy, happy, and has an unending amount of puppy energy. I would compare his to one of those spastic cartoon squirrels. We're working on breaking his jumping and food stealing habit. He's a very faithful walking buddy. He drives me nuts, but I do love him never the less

With exams = marking alllllllllllllllll day. Sometimes learners say some funny things though

Question: Write down a word that has the opposite meaning of the word threaten?

Answer: Rhinoceroses 

Question: Find a word in the text that has more or less the same meaning as "a set of laws about something"

Answer: Fewer people on earth

Sunday Funday's (late) Pictures. Meet a few special learners!

February Learners of the Month!

 

For this Sunday’s Sunday Funday pictures (even though its Monday, sorry we had no power yesterday for me to get my blog on) I want to invite you too meet some of my learners. In my English classes every week learners have the opportunity to win “Learner of the Week.” I have been sent some fun pencils from America in care packages that learners LOVE! They are definitely in need of school supplies, but throw on scents, or pictures and that it came all the way from America and you would think I was handing over $100. It really is the little things that count. So each month there are four Learners of the Week in each one of my 3 English classes, and out of those four one is crown Learner of the Month.  Learner of the month gets a grand prize of having their picture printed and given to them (and when I happen to have some) a small candy from America. Seriously it is the littlest things that are beyond exciting to the learners. Not many of them have a picture of themselves and who isn’t excited to try a candy from another country? I’m really trying to encourage positive re-enforcements, which typically is supplied in high fives, but when I get a couple goodies in the mail it feels wrong to hog them to myself.

 

Except for Hot Cheetos and pinon, those are mine! #sorrynotsorry  ;-p

 

So this week I want to broadcast not only the ones who learned Learner of the Week, but also put the Learners of the Month in the spot light. They work hard not only in class and on their homework, but also to be a role model to their fellow classmates.

 

Grade 8

Learners of the Week

 

They are so serious in pictures, so I had to make them laugh ;)

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learner of the Month!! 

Andreas

 Andreas is one who comes off quiet in the classroom but put some pen and paper in front of her and a new being is born. She studies hard because she wants to be a teacher and someone important one day. She one tiny little thing constantly holding a sweet little smile on her face and encouraging her classmates to try hard in school as well.

 

Grade 9

Learners of the Week

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learner of the Month! 

“Benny”

Benny has got to be one of the politest people I have ever met. With every teacher at school he is more than willing to help with passing out papers or carrying books. (Teachers rotate classes and often only have one set of subject books to be shared among all their classes.) He is not shy to offer help or ask for help from his fellow classmates. Benny plans on being a policeman someday to protect us from criminals.

 

 Learners of the Week

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Learner of the Month!

“Eddi”

Eddi, man this guy makes me laugh! He is your 9^th grade social butterfly. I’m trying to recall if I’ve ever seen him not smiling or joking around outside. He is seriously a friend with everyone! Eddi is super enthusiastic about school always being one of the first hands raised to answer questions in class. In his free time Eddi likes to write poems (a topic I haven’t even begin to teach in class).  Check out his latest poem below!

 

Poem

Thieves

 

COME TO ME

RUDE I AM

I STEAL FROM YOU

YOUR LOVE I GET

 

LOVE IS MY STYLE

ANGER IS MY SON

THIEF IS MY NAME

MONEY IS MY LOVE

 

POLICE ARE MY ENEMIES

A GUN IS MY HELPER

BUT FEAR OF JAIL

I AM FATHER OF HAIL

 

 

                   DONE BY EDDIE

 

 

 

*The learners were asked if it was okay to show their pictures and give you a little insight to who they are. They were thrilled featured!!

 

 

 

If you would like to support Learners of the Month with some candies or fun pencils/pen they absolutely LOVE it!! Goodies from America are a hot prize, especially warheads and tootsie rolls. Any goodies for learners can be sent to

 

Jamie Torres

Peace Corps Namibia

PO Box 114

Rundu Namibia 9000

 

 

Storytime

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”   - Dr. Seuss

Last weeks instagram post:

"They say attitudes are contagious... If thats the case I want to infect the Learners at my school with a love for reading and books. What better way than with story time" -Me :)

Reading, in my opinions is one of the most amazing gifts a person can have. Reading expands the mind and opens up worlds beyond what we can travel. It gives hope and creativity. Reading brings a sense of a million lives lived, and a million more to be lived. Anything is possible with literacy. So when I found out helping establish a reading culture at my school was one of their hopes I was both ecstatic and a bit heart broken. When I arrived to my school I came to find we have only a small "library" tucked away in a storage room which also doubles as the office of a couple teachers. There are books, but not many at all. An attempt at alphabetizing had been made, but not enforced by any means. Almost all teachers expressed one of their desires of me is to increase to reading abilities of learners, aid in English development, and help establish an actual library. That is a loaded request, but not impossible. 

A Grade 10 teacher who uses the "library" as an office and I had the opportunity to chat a bit over a library concept and ways to get learners excited about reading. After the two of us spoke with our principal a bit we came to the conclusion that we could utilize school space a bit better by moving the library to a place where we can also have room for learners to sit and read. We also discussed building hammocks outside under the trees with the rule of the hammocks being that if you want to lay in the hammocks, you must have an open book in your hands. Just a little something to appeal the idea of opening a book to learners. 

So after learning about this desire I decided to really look into what the library has and needs. First thing I noticed was they need an organization system, and that knowing the levels of books would be beneficial as well. I figured once I have things organized I would have a better idea of the inventory. Little by little I began carrying books from the "library" to my desk to dust them off and google what the book's reading level is. During one of my trips one girl would lives close to me asked what I'm doing. I told her I was trying to help the library because I love books and were suppose to take care of the things we love. I asked her if she likes books and she nodded. So I handed her a children's story that looked to have some fun pictures. She is only a Grade 1 learner but she has amazing English! She told me she didn't know how to read all the words so I asked if she would like me to read to her. This made me super excited, so I put down the pile of books I had and sat with her to read. Children here, as in anywhere are very curious. One little girl turned into two, which turned into four, and later to about 20. Lower Primary learners leave earlier than the rest of the school so they caught me on their ways home. We read a couple short simple books and they went on their way. The following day they requested another story when they saw me in the school yard. This thrilled me to know they wanted more story time so naturally I agreed. There was down side though. As I mentioned before lower primary learners are excused from school early so a heard of us outside reading caused some distraction to other classrooms. One lower primary teacher then requested that I come to her class to read the following day to learners, a request I has happy to fulfill. 

I knew I would be with them for about 2 class periods so I decided lets make a project to go along with reading. We read a story about a tortoise whom in short lost her shell after taking it off and it being stolen by monkeys. Those tricky monkeys! Eventually the tortoise's friends help her to retrieve her shell and they had a party  dancing and playing. We read the story, then all the learners were instructed to draw their own picture of animals having a party, they could use the same animals in the book or add new animals. Being that they were Grade 1 learners I was skeptical about how much they would understand. With some aid needed from the regular class teacher story time along with the arts project after went much better than I had hoped for. The learners were so into the story, and even helped me pick up a few new words in Rukwangali! One learner even invited my tattoo to her party and drew it into her picture. It was a great experience, and I hoping for future opportunities to have more story times with learners.

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