So... day one with materials!

The day began by putting some banana, lemon, and vanilla cake in the staff room to show the teachers some love! I have been a teacher and I know how we feel when one of the parents or other staff brings some treats so I wanted to lighten up everybody’s mood and show some appreciation for their hard work!

After leaving the treat for the teachers I went into the classroom and they were already waiting for me. To my surprise they had combined two of the classroom making 40+ kids in the classroom and it felt a little bit overwhelming.

I got out Dr Seuss' ABC book and started reading it. That went well except for the part that the teacher asked them to repeat every other word in the book! I think they have never read stories so they didn’t know that they are only supposed to listen so I played along and it took forever to get through the ABC’s book.

Dr. Seuss' ABC

ABC Poster I brought with the book.

After the book I said to teacher Laura that I had an art activity prepared but only for her classroom so the other classroom left. In all honesty I don’t know how we could have handled a classroom with 40+ children using materials they have never used before.

The night before I had spent about 4-5 hours cutting crepe paper and making it into little balls to be glued to the alphabet letters I drew on white paper. When I showed the kids the example there was a wave of "wows" coming from all the kids. 

Dos, my host, helping out! haha

In the matatu still working.

I wrote both capital and lower case but thought we wouldn’t even get through the lower case. 

But oh boy! was I wrong!  we did the art activity and the children sat there, repeating the 3 word sequence of the activity "ONE- DIP-PUSH" (for take one ball, dip in the glue, push it into the paper) and did all 52 letters! ❤️ their faces filled my heart with joy!

Teaching Wisdom the sequence

Agnes and Mary at work!

The whole classroom quietly doing their job!

How pretty!

Before the end of the day the letters were glued to the wall!

We sang twinkle twinkle and two little black birds using hand gestures and varying our tone of voices from regular voice, to whisper, to no sound and then I told them that I then knew that they could use a regular voice and quiet voice.

I also talked to the teacher and talked about the importance of eye contact and how by looking at them and using sign language one can control the child's behavior without having to scream across the room! From that day teacher Laura learned how to sign sit down, be quiet, and lower your voice and it was actually incredible to see how quickly the children learned to follow the sign language command!

Using the world map I visited several classroom and showed them where El Salvador was and taught them how to say hello, how are you, and goodbye in Spanish! As I walked away I heard classes practicing their Spanish! It was so cute! After that about 300 children screamed "hola" to me!

Can you imagine a classroom with that many kids and one teacher?

The first day with materials made such a big difference in the classroom and of course made a difference on what I could show the teacher.

The theme for the second day was COLORS! 

Since I couldn’t really find many books in Nairobi I had to stick with a collection of Dr. Seuss’ books.

The night before I had texted teacher Laura to see if I could only have her children in the room since 40+ children to me was too much and also requested that we sit in a circle since it is my preferred way of reading books and teaching. 

My day started by reading hop on pop by Dr Seuss' and it went so well! Sitting in a circle felt more comfortable to me and the kids got to see the pictures without others blocking them. They did a little bit of repeating but I introduced some hand gestures to mimic what the book was saying and emphasized the colors we saw. The kids  really enjoyed the book and sat the whole time!

After the book I introduced the color poster and laughed at the "wow" that came from the kids! I showed them the colors and they repeated them. To help them remember the colors I also introduced some songs that had colors in them.

Then it was maraca time! 

I love including music although I’m a terrible singer  but thought that maraca making would be a lot of fun and a nice way to introduce rhythm. 

I started our maraca making by showing the children every colored pencil and comparing it to the color on the poster and then putting the pencil on their table. I thought it was a great way for them to see the colors.

The maraca making went actually really well! So far I have been impressed by how well they have done with the art activities.

Coloring the paper plates for the maracas.

Filling the plate with beans

After making maracas I tried to teach them rhythm patterns but I wasn't so successful! They were just going crazy with the maracas and since probably it was the first time ever they had such things it was hard to control them.

The last activity of the day were balloons for them to touch and say the colors! When I got the balloons out they literally went crazy! They absolutely loved the balloon activity!

The first thing we did was to pass one balloon from person to person and when passing they had to say the color.

Then we called a group of kids to come and tap the balloon in the air and say the same. 

Then, teacher Laura called the students one by one to come and catch the balloon and say its color.

By day two I asked Teacher Laura what "Cha" meant since all the kids said it non stop! She looked at me with a confused look so I said "What does Cha mean? I keep hearing it from the kids say Cha, Cha, Cha" and I think she laughed and said "it's teaCHA" as in "teacher" haha I had such a great laugh and at night I went and told Joan and Dos and from that day on I was never again Andrea, my official name became Cha Maria around their house!

That night I had a very busy couple of hours separating and counting all the materials I had bought to start giving them out little by little as I could only carry so much in the matatus!

... A new day...

By day three I started to give out the donations to two of the classrooms and the teachers were so grateful! 

One said "you must love us this much" and opened her arms wide open! I said that my friends were more than happy to help out! They said to say thank you!

I then headed to the classroom next to mine since they wanted maracas too. To my surprise at 9am there were no kids in the classroom, somehow they have super strange cleaning time so since the lady was cleaning all the kids had gone out. The first couple of days I wondered why the floor of the classroom was always very very dusty and that day I saw how they cleaned it! 
The lady mops the floor without sweeping first and then she dips the mop in a bucket of water (by then mud), so she only wets all the dust and gets mud on the floor. Once it dries all the dust is still there! If I were cleaning I would wet the floor and squeege the dirty water out so the floor is actually clean.


Since there were no children I took advantage of teacher Virginia having some free time and introduce a numeral and counter activity with the new foam numbers and some beans:

Counting with beans

After my quick math lesson I overheard my classroom singing "if you are wearing any red any red", a song I taught them yesterday! So cute!

Maraca making and pattern shaking with the class next door was easier than in my classroom the day before! And the kids absolutely loved it!

I went back to my class and read "I wish I had duck feet" and this time I said that the story was only for them to listen. Teacher Laura helped translating it into kikuyu for the kids to understand it better. I think the kids have never read any books and they all sit quietly and listen to the story and when the pictures are shown their eyes open wide! I love it!

After the book we moved on to our poster of the day THE BODY, I showed them different parts of the body and we touched our legs, head, lifter our hands, and had a good laugh poking our belly buttons! 

Then it was time for head, shoulders, knees and toes! They went a little crazy when doing it super fast and followed my lead when we did it "pole pole" (slowly slowly!)

The last activity was drawing ourselves! It was interesting to see the children ask if they could use more than one color! Usually the teacher only gives them one color for the whole activity because of lack of materials... so happy that we are able to provide more for these children.

Drawing Cha Maria with the kids

That day for the first time I saw the students take a nap! I didn’t even know they took naps! 

Nap Time

The day ended by going to the local store and ordering 20 nice soccer balls for the classes to have! With donations we were able to get good quality balls that hopefully will last a long time.