Friday 5-30-14

Friday 5-30-14

                Our morning went well. I made apple cinnamon oatmeal, but Jove chose to have just an apple with cinnamon and sugar on it. Apparently oatmeal is yucky now. He can be such a silly boy. Thank you Mamaliz for picking up the apples from Dar, they were really good. I still wasn’t feeling well, so I tried to relax as much as I could before school. I couldn’t even get a cup of coffee down, which always means the day will be long. I went through the midterms to see what I wanted to do our testing on today. I managed to pick a few things and wrote them down to try to make things a little easier on myself once at school.

                The kids and I got to school right on time. We would have been there sooner, but internet came back on right as we were getting ready to leave, so I wanted to check emails and messages first. I had the kids help move in a few extra desks so we had enough room to spread out. I had std2 and std3 together for testing, so 24 kids all to myself. We chose teams and I got everything set up. I was so busy that the day ended up going by very quickly. The teachers doing the std1 testing finished twenty minutes early. I let them know they were done very early, then I went on and continued with our testing. Well, I guess I chose something that took too long to correct, because I ended up in a frenzy at the end trying to get all the papers corrected, scores recorded, then the totals figured out. I didn’t want any of the kids to go to lunch late, so I had one of our students that is very good at math help me start the totals while I was finishing up correcting the papers. I let them know who the winner was and they came up to get their prize of a plastic egg with a few jelly beans inside.

                After we cleaned up the room a little, the kids and I went home. We were only there a short while then we went for a walk down to the duka so the kids could buy something with their money they have earned. They each chose to buy two suckers and a half cake. I got a half cake as well because they were just so fresh and hot. I still had to make myself eat it since I wasn’t feeling well, but it was worth it. I do so love half cake nice and hot like that. No donut is better. We walked down the path and bought some bananas from a nice older man. Then it was back up to the house. The next few hours were spent me curled up on the couch reading my book while the kids played outside. Samweli kept coming inside to check on me then tell me “Sorry teacher”. He is such a sweet boy. He calls me Mommy now.

                Ayla and Jove found a few animal friends today. Well, I found one. I was laying on the couch trying to rest and out of the corner of my eye I see movement on the pillow next to me. I jumped a little. It was only a little inch worm going crazy. I called the kids over and Jove picked it up. He went to find something to put it in and he yelled then came over to say he found a big scary bug. Turns out he found some kind of African praying mantis. How cool is that? He let it crawl all over his shirt. Then they decided to put it with the worm. The mantis immediately started attacking the worm. The kids decided the mantis was mean and they needed to take care of the worm. They are too goofy sometimes. But they released the mantis and true to their word, they took care of the worm. They found a nice grassy spot away from foot traffic and made the worm a nice ‘bed’. I love when they are like this.

                Farida came by to see if we could do math. I let her know that I was sick, but I would make some flash cards to help her. So I ended up putting my book away and decided to make up the flash cards. I figured that making them up would be more fun with a movie, so I put on Lord of the Rings. It wasn’t long before Ayla, Jove, and Samweli were all snuggled up next to me watching the movie also. Ayla tried to explain to Samweli the movie is about a ring. He kept pointing out when there would be a bad guy or a very bad man. It was funny. I finished the flashcards and like the way they turned out. She is having trouble grasping division. She does fine with multiplication and I have tried to explain that it is basically the same thing, but she just can’t get it. So, on the flashcards I have in long division form a problem. Then below that I have the same problem written with the division symbol using the line and dots. Finally below that I turned the problem into a multiplication problem with unknown. (5 X __ =25). I really hope that it helps her. She gets so embarrassed because she is the only one in the class that is having a hard time with that. It is because she was in Std2 and was doing so well she got bumped up a level. These kids are just so competitive that she wants to be just as good if not better than all the rest of them.

                I made beans, greens, and rice for dinner. I know how much the kids love it and I thought it might be something I could eat. It turned out very good and I ate two bowls without issue, so I was happy.

                I got the kids cleaned up and read to them while they were in the tub again. We are now reading Beverly Cleary “Sox”. Two chapters and an hour later, I tucked the kids into bed. Every night Ayla has such a hard time just going to bed. I will give her kisses and all that and for the next half hour it is always “mommy, when you are done with your journal can you come give me another kiss?”, “mommy, I need water.”, “mommy, I love you goodnight, see you in the morning, have a good night.” The last one will be repeated every thirty seconds to minute until I finally end up snapping at her to just go to bed. She is just so sweet it can drive a mommy crazy J

                Now it is time to see if the hot water in the shower is going to be nice to me. Hopefully it will be. A nice hot shower may help me feel a little better. Then it is off to bed. I don’t even think I can get any reading done tonight. I am just beat.