After all of the planning last night we were excited to get into the schools - Munyove (LEH's link school) and Isha (Devonshire House's). The LEH teachers had a very warm welcome of singing and clapping from Olive the headmistress and all the pupils before splitting up to observe and teach lessons. There was a mixture of Chemistry, Primary Science and both Senior and Primary English. It was great to see the interactive teaching of the Rwandan teachers, as well as the group work their students were doing.
Olive and the students welcome the LEH teachers
Jenny taught a lesson about verbs and adverbs to a group of 27 P5 children today. After staging a race in teams to devise a comprehensive list of action verbs on the board, they tried to match some selected verbs with suitable adverbs. Drama came to the fore here with some major over-acting from Jenny to encourage verbal participation; something they were a little reticent to at first. The smiles came quickly though! This lesson culminated with the children listening to and then acting out a story about a Rwandan man called Thomas who apprehended a thief. They selected adverbs to describe the verbs as we progressed through it, putting it into practice. Before a game of cat and mouse outside, Jenny handed out the All About Me laminated cards that the LII girls had made for the children of Munyove. These have now been given to the school and will be displayed on the walls for all to see.
Jenny's class with the About Me posters
Emily taught a lively lesson on verbs to 15 P6 children using the laminated picture cards prepared at LEH. Once they had got the hang of the verbs from the pictures, she then introduced actions in an attempt to make the lesson more interactive and involve more learners. The children were a little uncertain at first at the sight of this crazy woman jumping and running around the classroom. However, by the end of the lesson, they were all enthusiastically coming up with actions for a range of verbs including: dig, laugh, jump and throw. They even wrote their own sentences up on the board using the verbs which they had learnt.
Maddie taught a lesson to S3 on comparison of adjectives where the students enjoyed describing each other in comparison to other members of the class. It was at this point that she found out there were students of all ages between 14 and 20 in the class! After the lesson there was a Q&A session with the students - and it was great to find out how many want to be teachers, doctors, nurses, engineers and there was even a budding sports journalist! The students were keen to know from Maddie what she would tell her students about them and Rwanda on her return - and they were pleased with her response that she would tell them of the happiness and smiles she has come across here!
Maddie's S3 class and their teacher Rachel
After the morning's lessons, we had a chance to have a feedback session with the teachers over sweet Rwandan tea and doughnuts. They were really keen to hear what suggestions we had for them to improve further on their lessons and they said they enjoyed watching ours too! Serious business out of the way, it was time for a couple of student vs teacher volleyball matches. (After we left a volleyball with them last year they decided they should start playing - perhaps we should have been practising ourselves!) The LEH teachers and Beth put up a good fight, but sadly not good enough to help the Munyove teachers beat their students.
LEH teachers get involved on the court
Beth makes a successful serve
Scoring is a serious business
The sunshine didn't seem to be too hot for these Nursery spectators
The new toilet block at Munyove, paid for by LEH
In Isha, the teachers from Devonshire House split up and spent the morning teaching counting patterns and multiplication, English verbs and the water cycle to a range of classes. We put a real focus on creating an active classroom environment; teaching with groups or pairs, singing songs, and getting children out of their seats, or out of the classroom, for activities. A special mention should go to Mrs Piper and her impressive range of animal noises which kept P2 entertained!
Noelia and Ruby dance with the students
Steph and Miranda play football
The teachers at Isha asked their pupils to bring in things they had made at home - one brought in a banana tree he had grown in a tomato paste pot and the other made a pestle and mortar.
We were delighted to see that a brand new toilet block has been built, with money raised from DHS, to join the newly built classrooms.
From there, we took an extremely adventurous 'shortcut' (in a very battered minibus) to Munyove. The shortcut took us over hill and down dale, over some exceptionally hairy bridges, and Steph and Miranda ended up having to push the bus out of a ditch at one point, much to the entertainment of the onlookers!
Steph pushing the minibus when it got stuck!
The afternoon was then spent playing volleyball and dancing with the incredibly energetic children and staff at Munyove.
We all hiked home through the red dust, enjoying the shade of the eucalyptus trees which towered above us.
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