fws team blog

The Kesho Leo chekechea (pre-school) is in full swing and includes members from over 50 families in the local community! We have 3 different classes taking place for different age groups and thanks to Amy (a fantastic short-term volunteer with FWS), we now have an English and Kiswahili speaking teacher for each group.

The future generation of Sinon have been learning about ‘growing things’ this month, including fruits and veggies and what they need to grow, and also about ‘living things’ including all those lovely creepies and crawlies that seem to have made their home in our classroom!

After reading 'the enormous beetroot', the children had great fun recreating a tug-of-war pulling extravaganza and learnt just how much force is needed to pull their teachers to the ground!
The older children also did a hilarious re-enactment of Jack and the beanstalk for the nursery class…complete with very loud mooing cow…and we talked about the moral implications of Jack taking the giant’s money without asking (opinion was divided).

We’re looking forward to watching Don, Elvis and John catch some fish from the pond next week and practising some more of our amazing writing and counting skills.

In after-school tuition the older children have been getting to grips with geometry,verbs and comprehension – not as boring as it sounds…and the younger childre have been having lots of fun doing colour, counting and vocab games. Lucas - our social welfare liason with FWS has also been helping out with the afternoon tuition sessions and has been providing some much needed translation for mathematical formulas and encouraging the children to ask questions and voice their opinions.

The Mamas English classes have also been going really well and the Mamas are growing in confidence at using the English that they know. After a class where we learning about different tenses, Helena very proudly informed Don: “Yesterday, I went to school, Today, I am digging manure, Tomorrow I will go to the market...” Safi sana Helena!

We’re watching ‘Madagascar’ on the big screen in the school room tommorow evening (the joys of mobile projectors) so am expecting lots of questions from Mamas and children about singing lemurs and other exciting things!