Weeks 6 & 7

Goodness, I suppose I’d better combine Week 6 and Week 7 together in one blog post seeing as how Week 7 just ended and I haven’t posted about Week 6 yet. My bad my bad. So let me think back a bit.

            Week 6 was a really good week. We moved on to our last and final sense which was touch. I was most excited about this sense because I really wanted to buy the kids shaving cream and let them just put their hands in it and get it all over the place. When I put the shaving cream on their desks though they just looked at me like “what is this crazy lady doing?!?” Then when I told them to put their hands in it I only confirmed to them that I was in fact crazy. None of the kids wanted to touch it!! So I had to go around to each of them individually and force them to get their hands in it. That’s when they realized how fun it really was and chaos erupted in the classroom. Kids were wiping it on each other, clapping their hands together making it splatter all over the place, and spreading it from the tips of their heads clear down to their ankles. Needless to say it took more time to clean up then it took to make the mess. I think they loved it though. Week 6 was a short week for me at the crèche because Thursday I went to Christian David’s track meet and then Friday I left to go on my Safari.

            Week 7 was also a bit of a short week for two different reasons. The first being that I missed Monday because we were still traveling back from Joburg, but then second is that Wednesday was a public holiday. Not exactly sure what holiday it was but it was obviously important enough that even crèches were closed. On Tuesday when I walked back into class after being gone for a couple of days I was greeted by a loud outburst of “TEACHER KAMEN TEACHER KAMEN!” It seems that while I was gone they all mastered my name!! Well kinda we’re still working on that ever important “R” sound.  WAHOO. Such a proud moment. Then I was informed that while I was gone all the kids kept peeking their heads out the door looking for me and then when I obviously wasn’t there they’d sigh and say “Teacher Kamen is still gone” haha. It’s always good to know the kids miss you when you’re away. If only they knew how much I am going to miss them when I have to really be gone forever. This week was kind of a gap week. Since we’ve finished all of our senses we didn’t really learn about anything in particular this week and because I thought the kids might want to do something other than sit and color like they do all the time I decided we were going to learn to kick a ball!! Brilliant Idea right?! Yeah.. haha So I got the very beat up soccer ball that we have in our classroom and made them all stand in a circle holding hands. The reason they had to hold hands is because in Soccer/Futball you don’t get to use your hands. Then the goal was that we would take turns kicking the ball across the circle to one another in a very friendly fashion. Well this lasted about two minutes until the ball went in between two kids and out of the circle. Then it was literally a mad dash between about 8 boys to see who could get to the ball the fastest. Well jokes on the fastest kid cause turns out when you get the ball first you also get elbowed in the ribs, punched in the eye and your t-shirt ripped in half. That was the end of our Soccer/Futball game playing. Maybe we’ll try again next week. :-0  I’ve also noticed that this week my kids’ vocabularies have exploded!! At the beginning of my time with them they only spoke in Coosa or Afrikaans unless they were saying “teacher” or “pee” but it seems that now they are speaking more and more English everyday. I’m not sure if it’s because in the beginning they were just being shy or if it’s because I only talk to them in English. Either way I’m quite proud of them and am planning to continue to force them to use their words. Which means they have to ask for everything they want or they just don’t get it. I think it’s a plan that will only have success at the end of it!

 This little one is named LeAnn and her mom may have handed her to me and said "keep her". I do believe that's permission to take this one home with me!!

            Next week is the start of Easter Break which last about 10 days, so we are anticipating a few less kiddos at the crèche seeing as how they might be on Holiday with their families visiting other family members. I can’t believe Easter is just around the corner. This will be Easter number dos away from my family. I think next year I am going to make it a point to be home for everything. Well that’s all for now! More next week J