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.
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?"
Cups song?
ReplyDeleteWonderful reading everything going on this year. Well done, guys! Have plenty of avocados for me please.
ReplyDeleteOh hooray, it worked!
ReplyDeleteLovely photos. It really takes us there. Wonderful what you all get up to. I stand amazed!
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