Week 4

So this week I began teaching a unit on the five senses. I found a big book in the library about five senses so I used that as my introduction to the unit. After reading, we talked about what part of the body we use for each sense and as we spoke I wrote the sense and part on the board. To close the lesson I had the students match each sense in writing to a picture of the part of the body. I wanted to keep the lesson pretty short since I have not had too many opportunities to teach them. I would say overall it went rather well. I know to some degree the students will not behave while I am teaching because they will not behave for any of the teachers, but with the help of the other teachers they will help me keep them in line. The second day we reviewed what was learned the day before and we talked about how we can enjoy each sense. For instance, one of the girls said she could smell stew cooking. After providing examples for each sense, I told the students they should pick one of the senses and draw a picture of how they enjoy that particular sense. I modeled an example of how I use the sense of sight to enjoy the view of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee. The lesson went well my only problem was that the students keep getting out of their seats even after I repeatedly tell them not to. The students either come up to me with a question or they want to show me their work. I do not know how to get them to stop doing this! It is not that I do not want to help them or that I do not care about their work, but while so much is going on it becomes overwhelming. The next day I concentrated only on the sense of smell. I wrapped gum, cookie, soap, lemon, garlic, onion, and pineapple in foil and numbered them. I had the students smell and guess what the scent was. The first attempt at this was done right at the end of the day and ended with the children just being completely out of control. I stopped and decided that I would attempt to try the activity the next day. It went better the second time around but the students would get so excited to smell the items that it got pretty crazy at times with students getting out of their seats. One boy while smelling the cookie attempted to take a bite out of the foil wrapped cookie. He was removed from the activity and so was the cookie. I then gave the students a worksheet on good smells and bad smells. There pictures of about 12 items and the students would circle the happy or sad face depending on how they thought the item smelled. Next week I will be teaching about the sense of taste. I going to have the children taste foods and identify whether the food is salty, sour, bitter, or sweet. I will also read books about the sense of taste and have the students complete a worksheet.

I also had the opportunity to teach English this week. I went through a couple pages of the exercise book with the students. The first page they would fill in the missing letter of the word. The second page they would write the word and for the third page they would match a picture of the object to the word. I feel like I have been able to teach more this week which is good. I have also taken part in the usual activities like creating the homework assignment, drawing lines in the students' books, and grading work.

This weekend I will be attending a funeral. I even got a black and white traditional outfit made. I will be traveling about two hours out of Accra, which will be my first time out of the city. I am some what nervous for the funeral since the woman died on December 6th and is being buried two months later. I guess things just take longer here, so they keep the bodies in the morgue for an extended amount of time.