JOY!

This week is a week of JOY. Ashley and I have had an incredible past three days with our students. It is starting to hit me that I only have one more week with these sweet little ones... all the more reason to embrace this week and have the time of our lives teaching and learning! On Monday we introduced "Morning Work"to the children who actually came to school. The entire school finished their exams last Friday; therefore, we were told that we would be lucky if half of our class showed up at school. We were told that the main reasons the students still come are to eat the free lunch. The teachers do not teach anymore... they just grade and prepare for next year. Completely different... However, we had a full class! We only had like 30 learners from our home class, but I invited more grade 4 learners to join us. We made them all a small "Morning Work Notebook". They got to put their names on the front and decorate it with the amazing colored pencils. Color amazes them! It took the whole morning to complete the morning work that we assigned. We did math and english mini-lessons. We discussed patterns and the differences between to, too, and two. After break, we spent the afternoon reading. I got to read with my friend Litho whom you will meet soon! 

 Tuesday was letter day! Both of our classes back home wrote letters to the students here in South Africa. Therefore, we had a mini lesson on writing letters and then we spent all morning reading and writing letters. Each student received a letter and we helped them read them. Then, they were able to write their own letter. It was very difficult for some of them, but they turned out great! I cannot wait to share them with the students back home! Ashley and I had split the class into two groups. I was talking with my group about things that they like that they could share in their letters. Then, one student asked me if I knew Justin Bieber. Is that even a question? haha. I said yes and he started singing, "Baby, baby, baby..." This turned into another front row concert from the entire class! Enjoy this video and please ignore my singing in the background- I was having a little too much fun:) I think they deserve to be on stage with him one day... wonder how we could make this happen... Tuesday afternoon we worked on multiplication in groups. It was a great day, definitely one full of JOY and laughter.

Wednesday was math day! We started our day with the usual morning work. We were still working on patterns in math, and then grammar and spelling in english. After we completed our morning work, we started math. We reviewed comparing and ordering numbers. Then, I gave each student I sentence strip with a number on it. They had to order themselves from least to greatest (smallest to biggest for their understanding). It took them a little while to work together. However, they successfully ordered themselves! We then tried it with decimal numbers, but we quickly found out that they had not learned decimals yet. Therefore, we moved on for the day. Next, I taught the students how to use a coordinate grid to find ordered pairs. We used the chalk board to do a whole class lesson, and then we broke into partners. There were only 18 students today! It worked out wonderfully! We were able to do a fun math game with our limited resources. We taught them how to play Candy Coordinates! I used this game as a math center in the States. They were so excited to use hands on materials! They did incredibly well with the activity. After break, we had our afternoon reading time. 

 Tomorrow we will not be at school. We are going to visit a variety of other schools in the area and  Nelson Mandela University campuses. I hate to miss a day with these children, but we will be back on Friday! I cannot believe that tomorrow is Thanksgiving! I have so many things to be thankful for! We have big plans and I cannot wait to tell you all about it. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving:)