-----Teaching in Namibia-----: Wed the 2nd and Thur the 3rd

Wednesday morning began in confusion as we waited at breakfast for Shane to come and pick us up and he never did. Instead, there were two cars from a different taxi company who had come to take one group to Steenkamp and the other to Moses for the day. We found out later that Shane had had to use the van to take a large group to the airport that morning. We got to school fine, but it was a bit odd the route we took and having us be in separate cars.

I arrived at school to find again that Mrs. Emma was still gone. The day before, the principal had sent Mr. Mica to help me find the maths syllabus so I could have an idea of what content to teach. Another of the maths teachers had stopped by also and told me Mrs. Emma would like for me to re-teach rounding-off since we had only briefly touched on it before. I knew that Jan was going to be coming to observe me that afternoon, so I was glad that I had a full lesson planned, including an opening activity, that was aligned with where the learners were in their syllabus.

I began the maths lessons with a clapping activity where the learners would clap along with me through their multiplication facts for 3. It went something like this: clap with 3 clap with times clap with 0 clap with is clap with 0 then so forth trough 3 times 12 is 36. The students enjoyed this and I know it was stretching their thinking skills as I myself found I had to thing hard in order to keep on track with it. At one point during this activity, a large group of people from Norway who were visiting the school came in to observe me. It was interesting, but the kids kept on going like champs.

After the opening activity, we quickly went over the corrections from the homework for the day before and then got into rounding. I assumed that no one had ever told these learners why you round up when you get to five or more. I asked them if they knew and they confirmed my assumption. So then I began my lesson with a bicycle scenario I had used in the states in my second grade practicum class. This pictures shows what the hill looks like, but uses a car instead of a bike. I drew this hill on the board with a house on either side of the base. I had a sticky note with a bike drawn on it that I moved up and down the hill as I spoke.

It goes a little like this: Susie is trying to get to her grandma's house but she has to go over a hill on her bike to get there. On certain days she only makes it so far before getting tired. I go through all the numbers and show how Susie can easily slide down back to her house if she makes it to numbers 1-4 and how she can easily slide down to her grandma's house if she makes it to numbers 6-9. I then talk about the 5. I show the students how at the 5 she can just as easily slide down to her house as she can to her grandma's house, but I remind them that the goal is to get to her grandma's house, so when she gets to the 5 she will choose to slide down the right side rather than the left. I label her house as the same and grandma's as +1 and talk about how that applies to what we do when we round-off. I think the learners really enjoyed this and it helped them to see a tangible explanation of why 5 does what it does in rounding.

We then went back over the rules for rounding in a more generally applicable way than they had learned before. I had the learners come up and hold the key words for the steps as we did them together. Then with my first class, 7A, we made up a song to remember the steps which I then taught to my other maths classes. I will try to post the videos of them singing it, but it goes a bit like this: Identify, Underline, Circle, then Decide, Round-off, Left the same, Right zeros, and start again. They loved it! Jan came in to observe during the second maths class and thought it was fun also.

In my home ecology classes, I began with a game I call cook, clean, pay and then I did some more stuff with USA. Before leaving my classes in University Place, I had each complete a paper with a self-portrait, their name, and some of their favorite things. I began sharing with my home ecology classes these papers. I did it in sort of like a meet and greet fashion. For example: this is so and so, this is about what they look like, they enjoy this and that and have these people in their family. The learners really enjoyed this and depending on what the students from Washington had listed as their favorite things, I was able to teach the learners different things. I explained also that the learners would be completing their own sheets like those for me to take back to USA and share with my classes. I'm really glad I thought to do this because it is a really great way to share from class to class. So a big thank you to Mrs. Ash, Mrs. Levenseller, and their classes for helping make this possible!

As I said in my post about the first part of the week, I have a friend named Ann-Lee who comes to see me daily during each time she can. On Tuesday I asked her what she was going to do during break and asked her if she had a snack she was going to eat. She calmly replied that there was no food at her house for her to bring. I told her I would bring her something the next day. So Wednesday I gave her a kid's cliff bar that I had brought from USA. She was very thankful for the snack and loved that it was something from USA.

At break on Wednesday, we were told school would be getting out at noon for the learners and the teachers would be meeting for the rest of the school day to discuss a speech from the Ministry of Education. It was quite interesting as neither the teachers nor the learners had been told this in advance, they had been told at 10:00 the day of.

On Wednesday after school, we were given the opportunity to go "shopping" for our professor's skirts and shirts as they were leaving the next day and wanted us to have a greater variety of clothing available to us for the remainder of our stay. I thought this shopping trip was the best shopping trip I had ever been on, I got three skirts to wear for the low low price of N$0 ($0 American) :) That night then we all went out to Joes as a final dinner together. There I got a Fanta float, which tasted like drinking a creamsicle as it was orange Fanta with vanilla ice-cream in it. I would recommend it to anyone. Then, Jessica and I shared a Bushman's Platter which consisted of many different types of game meat, corn fritters, and a small salad. We had ostrich, zebra, chicken, crocodile, and kudu (antelope). It was fun to try all these types of meats, but if we go back, I am just going to get a large kudu steak since that was the only meat I really enjoyed from the platter. While waiting for our food, Jessica and I wandered into the gift shop and talked for a long time with the worker there whose name was Saniquwa. She asked us many questions about USA and was surprised by some of the answer we gave her.

Thursday was the day our professors, Jan and Paula, and Katee were scheduled to depart. They didn't have to leave for the airport until 6pm though which was nice. One of the girls who had become good friends with Katee during our time here asked our professors if we could only teach a half day so we could spend time with Katee and them before they left. They agreed and we were all glad for that. We went to school and stopped into the principal's office first thing to let her know we were going to be leaving school at break that day. She was cheery as always and expressed her thankfulness for the time and service we had given the school so far. During the staff meeting then she announced that if student teachers wanted to share with the staff and lead the morning devotional any day that they were very welcome to do that.

In my home ecology classes this day, I began by singing "On a Day Like This" (a fun but simple camp song) with the learners. I love this song and it made my heart so happy as my 40 learners sang along and did the actions with joy. I really want to do it again when I can have someone video record us doing it. I went over more of the portraits with them which they continue to enjoy.

Since I was leaving at break this day, I only saw one of my maths classes which is 7D. 7D is my most difficult class and they are a bit farther behind in the content than the other classes. So we were working on factoring this day. I showed them the method of trying each of the numbers and writing the facts out. Then per suggestion from one of my colleagues I taught taught them the turn around rule, which is when you get to a number you already used, you are done. For example when factoring 12 you try 1 and get 12, try 2 and get 6, try 3 and get 4, you are done then cause the next one you would try would be 4 and you already have 4. To make this fun, I drew a line in front of the 4 and called this the wall. I then did full body action as I pretended to hit the wall then turn around and took a bow since I was done. The whole class did this with me as they giggled. As we got a bit farther into factoring, I realized that them not knowing their multiplication facts was causing them to struggle greatly. We took the rest of the time to hand make multiplication charts (since they are not in their books and making copies of one is not a wise use of their resources).

At break I left some very unhappy learners. They were hugging me and saying, "No, Miss, Miss must stay." At first they thought it was I who was going back to USA that day, but I assured them I would be with them for a few more weeks. They were still not glad to see me go and I was a bit sad too since I had no idea who was going to look after them that afternoon. I found out the next day they had just sat in the classroom while some of the boys were taken to the library to help stamp books. This was sad and I really hope Mrs. Emma returns soon as I know there will be other days we will be gone from school for different reasons.

We went shopping downtown for a bit and I got some good deals on some great stuff for gifts and for my future classroom. We ate lunch at Mugg & Bean where I ordered their delicious strawberry and banana smoothie and tried the caprese salad which was also good. We ran into Paul and Shirley there too which was fun. We stopped by the children's home on our way back to Casa Blanca so Katee could say goodbye to the kids and get their address.

Back at Casa Blanca some people laid out in the sun and other worked on stuff for the remainder of the afternoon. I had a chat with Jan and Paula about what I needed to finish for them to fulfill the rest of the requirements for this class. It's exciting that I wil be getting the final grade for my undergrad on Tuesday the 8th and my degree will be posted, and then I will be finished. At 5:30pm I bid Jan, Paula, and Katee goodbye and left with Jessica, Jessica, and Jill to what we thought was a play's final dress rehearsal. It turned out to be more of a poetry reading deal mixed with a cd release, but it was really cool regardless. We had been invited through our professors by the director, and were the only people there who were not involved in the production. We enjoyed ourselves and got a cool glimpse into some of the local life. When we came home, I had a good ol' American dinner of Toy Story themed mac and cheese.

At Joe's