We have had an incredible few days at Lipunga PS. We were welcomed this morning by Joyce singing a song Louise taught to Standard 1 yesterday.
Lauren has been working with a group of 10 sports leaders and a standard 8 teacher, Henry. The highlight with this group has to be when we tried 'break time buddies' yesterday for the first time. The sports leaders led activities with the younger learners during their break. The pitch became very busy very quickly with interest from the little ones! In fact there are always a group of younger learners around the pitch watching and trying to join in with the games throughout the day.
Louise has been working with Standard 8 and today delivered an English lesson on formal letter writing. With a chicken in the class (!) the children were introduced to think, pair, share and no hands up strategies. The pupils enjoyed working in groups and sharing their ideas ending with a spokesperson from each group reading their letter to the class.
Jane has been working between Standards 6 and 1, today introducing 'think, pair, share' to Standard 6 during a Life Skills lesson in personal hygiene. However her highlight of the day was helping with group work during a Maths lesson on sorting - a challenge when the learners do not speak English!
Marie and Lorraine will be very pleased to know that the library at Lipunga is being well used and the new books sent by MLOL have been brought out to be added to the library. Tomorrow some Standard 8 children are going to be trained in shared reading strategies with younger pupils.
Mary's meals is obviously having a huge impact here in Malawi, some of the children are being fed twice a day and we have had the opportunity to see the staff at work. Some of the women start working at 3am!
Yesterday, the teachers kindly gave us a cup of porridge to taste, today it was banana fritters and tomorrow we have been promised sweet potato! We are being so well looked after!
We feel so welcome at Lipunga PS after only a few days and we are making progress with our Chichewa!
Zikomo Kwambiri,
Jane, Louise and Lauren.
