How many abazungu can you fit in a car?

Harriet and Jane spent a busy day at the disabled village, Ngwino Nawe. After singing songs and playing games in the garden, the 30kg suitcase of resources donated by King's House School parents was opened and shared. Harriet and Jane introduced the pupils and staff to methods of encouraging early pre-writing motor skills and a positive learning environment. Raphael is one of the pupils who has been at Ngwino Nawe for 6 years. His cerebral palsy was originally seen as a barrier to any learning at all when Harriet and Jane first met him in 2010. Since then he has received excellent care from the dedicated staff at Ngwino Nawe, supported by Rwanda Aid. As a result he has developed almost beyond recognition and today he was eager to join in all the activities. He was able to hold and throw a sensory ball and was keen to start early writing skills by making marks with large chalk. It was a delight to see such joy in his face. All the children at Ngwino Nawe use sign language as a means of communication so when Harriet and Jane modelled telling the story of Handa's Surprise, the children were able to not only enjoy the story through their signing teacher, but also took great delight in teaching Harriet and Jane how to sign the names of the animals in the story. It was great fun. 

The afternoon was spent training the teachers in early years education and how to use the resources, not only with the younger pupils but also ideas for the older ones, for example using washing lines and pegs to allow the children to sequence, colour match, order numbers as well as using fine motor skills by pegging the resources on the line themselves and sharing their work with their peers. The teachers were very excited by these new ideas and were very grateful for the support. A whistlestop tour of Kamembe market on Harriet and Jane's journey home prepared them to set up a role-play area in the classroom tomorrow, which will be a vital part of the children's speech and language development.

At Isha, Stephan and Ben taught P.E. The children raced in relays and practised football and basketball dribbling on the new playground, kindly funded by a Devonshire House parent. They particularly enjoyed Tunnel Ball, as well as Over and Under races. Cyriac, the headteacher, helped too and the children loved seeing him take part.

On the request of a Rwandan teacher, Dave taught "If you're happy and you know it" to P3 with Beth, as well as the more demanding task of the concept of active and passive to a group of eleven year olds who struggle with a basic English sentence.

Francine and Sarah had a productive day working on their classroom wall paintings.

The P1 children at Isha emulated what the Devonshire House children had done by making sock rabbits with Andrea and Laurie. They will enjoy playing with them at break times. While making the rabbits the children learnt the names of the parts of the body. Afterwards they played ball games with the nursery, P1 and P2 and taught them the Hokey Cokey.

Stephanie did some crafting with the nursery, P1 and P2, doing painted hand prints and decorating them with sequins and foam shapes. The children loved using the paint and glue, almost as much as the Rwandan teachers!

Maddie had a challenge with P6 this morning. Back at LEH she is used to teaching Indirect Statement in Latin to a class of 17 very able year 10 girls, but today she was tasked with teaching Direct and Indirect Speech to a class of 55 year 6 pupils, who have very limited understanding of English! They particularly enjoyed the game of Simon says.

This evening everybody is sewing cushions for the nursery at Ngwino Nawe. We have also been practising the cups song and we have played an after dinner game of "how many abazungo [Swahili for 'white men'] can you fit in the car?"