More News!

Habari! Everything is going very well here at school and the children are enjoying their school days. There have been many changes happening from redecorating, staff and class restructuring. We have redecorated our classrooms and they are looking more and more wonderful! I really love my classroom the more it becomes filled with educational posters and students art work!

We have had some staffing changes. Madame Lindsay is no longer with us. Madame Lindsay was looking for employment, hopefully in Zanzibar that started in December or January. During the very early days of her search a school in Zanzibar that starts in October offered her a job. An opportunity like this on Zanzibar is hard to find so she decided to take it. It was not a easy decision for her to make and took many days and a trip to Zanzibard but in the end she made the best decision for herself. It was sad to see her go last Friday, but we had a fun filled last day. We had a field day in the morning followed by arts and crafts. At the end of the day we enjoyed some improvised ice cream sandwiches of ice cream, biscuits and banana, where the students presented her with surprise goodbye cards! We certainly miss her but wish her all the best.

With this means we are back to only two teachers and have had to restructure our schedule and classrooms! We now have the two cheke cheyas(kindergartens) together being taught by Sir Godfrey, which seems to be going very well. While I am still teaching the Standard One students, although at times we help each other out and swap classes.

Here are a bunch of pictures of the school and activities, Enjoy!

My classroom, standard one! 

Our Core Values!

Bulletin board: Animals. Vegetables & Fruits!

Sight words

Coloring!!

View from the back of the classroom

Alyat studying subtraction.

Sir Godfrey teaching!

Learning Shapes

Animals, Alphabets and Numbers

Dance Class!

Issa very into the moves!

Madame Lindsay reading to the students

                                    

Thanks so much for checking in and more to come!

          Habari! The classes have filled up with children’s smiling faces and the school term is already a month under way. We have many reasons to be excited from new students, a new teacher, wonderful donations, and new programming!

Lindsay-is our new teacher from The United States and here to teach our advanced cheka-cheya class. She is a very happy to return to Tanzania, after studying abroad in Zanzibar last year. It has been very helpful having her here and I’m looking forward to working with her.  

          On the last day of summer vacation while Lindsay and I were redecorating the school-we had four new students sign up! They are all wonderful additions and further helped secure the schools longevity. Not only did we increase our student body but two of them are girls-which has made Alyat, the former only girl, very happy! Due to the student’s different levels of English comprehension, we have separated the cheke-cheya into two classes. Sir Godfrey teaches the introduction cheke-cheya and Madame Lindsay teaches the advanced cheke-cheya. The introduction cheke-cheya is where the students learn the very basics of the English language, mathematics and good school behavior; while Lindsay goes more in-depth with these basic concepts. 

          The donations that Lindsay and I were able to bring back from North America are a blessing. All the reading books are wonderful and very easy to intermix into our curriculum. The whiteboards are used daily and the children love to do work on them!  All of us at the UHURU DAY TUITION Program are very happy and grateful for these donations. 

          Over the semester we will be introducing a dental hygiene program, school garden and compost. Lindsay and I both brought back toothbrushes and toothpaste from our dentists. To ensure the success of this program we have the students brush their teeth each day after lunch. The students really enjoy their toothbrushes and like to remind us all through lunch about brushing their teeth. Over the next few weeks the first steps will be taken to start our school garden. This will allow us to teach responsibility, organic gardening and lower our fresh food costs. The students will help from the beginning and feel ownership toward the garden. We plan on starting off with our leafy greens, as most other vegetables will not be ready this term. In addition to the school garden we will introduce composting to lower our waste, which is very difficult to get rid of.

      Lindsay is a experience ultimate frisbee player and has begun teaching our students the fundamentals of frisbee. The first lesson was to not call it a plate! Here are some lovely photos from our first frisbee lesson!!! 

  

I’m very much looking forward to the last term of school and all the possibilities it holds. Again, thank you very much for the donations that have been given to us! More to come in the following weeks! 

- Madame Kirsten