well actually here they go marching thousand by thousands! It's the ant season! i now walk with my eyes constantly looking down to prevent stepping on a line of army or 'fire' ants. these are not the friendly little ants we have back home but will quickly swarm all over you and at some silent signal bite all at once and it burns!
i have tried to take some pictures of these ants, they really are fascinating to watch (from a safe distance) but the pics don't really do juststice to the amazingness (yes i know that's not a real word) of how they work together. There are small ants that look just like our red ants at home and they travel back and forth carrying stuff.
the larger ants (at least 5 times the size) hold onto each other and form tunnels of protection for the smaller ants to go through. they also build of walls of dirt. although we have had the workmen torching them with gasoline and fire, they just come back. thankfully they have not invaded any houses yet.
the other wonderful creature that visited our school happened yesterday at afternoon tea. i missed most of the excitement as i was busy with some students but a gabon viper (look this one up online) was spotted not far from the boys dorm. thankfully some quick acting teachers were able to get the kids away and beat it to death without anyone getting harmed. this is
the 3rd snake that has been killed on station since i arrived. we don't see snakes that often usually, which is a good thing because most of them are pretty dangerous.
so other then the creepy crawlies, things have been going well. we've now been through a full week of schedules (as classes started on a wednesday) so the kids are beginning to figure out their routines and i'm beginning to remember the schedule. it's still a bit of a challenge to get the grade ones and twos to remember to be quiet and raise their hands etc, but it's
slowly sinking in. yesterday i had a great day with them and i thought 'hurray! they've finally got it!' and then today happened and i felt like i was starting at the beginning again. so... chovu chovu (slowly slowly) we begin again.
my biggest concern right now is for Some of my students who went to zambian nursery school know their ABC's but have no (or very little)
letter recognition. i am trying to start back at the beginning with them but they are getting frustrated because they think they know it and i'm getting frustrated because they don't and don't seem to want to learn! does anyone have any good ideas/tips for teaching letter recognition? also if there are any kindergarden teachers out there that have little rhymes or songs
to help with learning phonics and language rules(short vowels, long vowels to begin with) i would be forever grateful if you'd share! because our school starts at grade one i don't have any preschool/kindergarden curriculm available to me. also with limited internet usage and downloading it makes it hard to search online. so if you have stuff and are willing to share it
please send it to my email tiggerbeth@gmail.com thanks a bunch!
No comments:
Post a Comment