Libapo Preschool and then Uyoba School

This morning we divided the kids into two groups of about 12 each. Again we worked on colors and coloring. Evidently these guys have only been working with muzunga's, or white people, for about 3 weeks now. They are new at coloring and of course there are many different approaches. Some stay in the lines, some color off the paper. Every single kid put forth great effort. The main teacher, George, wondered how they were supposed to color the picture of the zebra, pronounced zaybra, since zebras were black and white? Good question! At the end of class, we posted all of the colorful zebras on the wall. This afternoon was my first day working with the 84 2nd graders. We went yesterday, Monday, but the teacher had sent them home early so she could correct their tests! If I had eighty-four 2nd graders, I'd send them home too, haha!! Two volunteers, ages 16 and 19, and I found the kids outside waiting for us today. Their teacher, Helen, started sending them all into the classroom, until I caught on and said, "we are here to work in small groups." A previous volunteer, who was here for 6 weeks, leveled and grouped them into mangoes, bananas, apples and oranges. So I took one group at a time, dividing them further into yet smaller groups. Small groups is a foreign concept in Africa, or a luxury for us in America! We counted off 1,2,3; 1,2,3 etc and it seemed they may have done this before, because twice a kid, a boy no less, tried to detour to the group he wanted to be in. No such luck! We eventually got around to the 'keywords' flash cards. This is a new series, called Happy Readers, which the previous volunteer began just months ago. I just followed the directions. Here's a quote from the manual; Computer Analyses of word counts in books and other texts in English reveal some interesting findings. Approximately 100 words make up 50% of all the words in a typical text. These are called Keywords, and they can be thought of as the "glue" around which the other 1000 words are built.
Anyways, the series comes out of Zimbabwe, and the volunteer coordinators are thrilled to have it. I have a slight problem in that the kids haven't put their hands on a book yet, but I'm just following the manual. It was fast and furious for a little over an hour! The kids were very well behaved, eager and it was a joy to be teaching them. Lucky for me, I had read enough African Volunteer memoirs to have a plan when the teacher tried to send all 84 kids into the room with me! I forgot to take a picture, but I'm sure that's a good thing. Taking pictures causes quite a commotion around here.