Teaching in Nigeria

Indian Villages

2009-05-10T09:14:00.000-07:00

We had a great time making our Indian Villages.

I think the most fun was the Pueblo Village made with home-made playdough.

The sugar cube and icing to make the igloo was tasty!

Science Fair

2009-02-22T13:00:00.000-08:00

For the first hour, parents and non-elementary students came to our classroom to see our Science projects.

At 10:30, there was a rotation to allow each elementary class to see the other grades projects. By the end of the day, my 3rd graders have talked about their project for 4 hours. They were exhausted!Some of the Middle School kids were impressed with David's project. His experiment showed that lemons made almost 2 Volts of current. Onions and Potato did not do as well.

Back to School

2009-01-18T05:34:00.000-08:00

It seemed that we were on Christmas break forever! I behaved myself and didn't do any school work for the first 2 weeks. I was busy making Christmas cookies and ginger bread houses that the kids make and Mommy eats!

Each break I have a reading contest with the class to see "Who can read more than Mrs. Ardill?" This break I had 2 students that read more than 5,000 pages and they can only read chapter books. I managed to read about 2,000 pages.

We spent the first hour hearing "briefly" how everyone spent their break. As other children spoke, they all seemed to think of another important thing they forgot to tell us. I had them talk to their neighbor and then the neighbor reported what was forgotten. That seemed to appease the ones who were dying to tell me more. I had to work hard on classroom management because they were all so excited to be back.

Debriefing after the riots

2008-12-13T12:11:00.000-08:00

I have 13 kids in my class and I was very worried about how I was going to listen to each of their stories when I was still feeling stressed.

I greeted each child with a huge hug when they entered the classroom and set some ground rules. One, get your backpack unpacked (routine), two, fill your water bottle with clean water since it had been a week (routine) and last not talking about the trouble until we all got together on the carpet.

One child came in and greeted me with, "I almost got shot." A quick giving of rules and she skipped off to fill her water bottle. Once all the students got to their desks after the bell to start school rang, there was one student that was absent. One child said, "I think she is dead." A stern look and an invitation to all go to the carpet quieted this little boy!

I started with the rules. Each child would be given a turn to tell their story. Each child could only tell the class what they personally heard or saw. We had all heard rumors and kids do overhear parents and sense their fears. I did not want to create extra anxiety by hearing what others had heard others saying.

After a child had shared they had heard shooting, I clarified whether it was a lot or a little. Were they scared? Did they stay in their house the entire time or go to another location?

Only one little girl seemed very quiet which was not her normal self. After she was able to tell her story and how scared she was, she seemed to regain her smile at least in her eyes. I affirmed that it was OK to be scared and ask if she had told her mom how scared she was. She had not, so I encouraged her to talk to her mom and tell her. (A letter from the Principal was going home that day that encouraged parents to let their kids talk about their own fears and what they had heard from other students.) Out of my 13 kids, 4 were far enough away from the trouble that they didn't hear any gun fire. But 9 did and admitted to being scared.

Our funny family story was that we were all still stressed and my 17 year old was making toast in the morning for breakfast and when the toast popped, she jumped and yelped. My third graders enjoyed the story and it helped them see that sometimes we react funny when we are feeling stress. My daughter had kids come up to her all day and smile and say "toaster". She wants to be a Psych. major in college and help traumatized kids, so she was a good sport realizing that it helped some kids not feel so weird when they jumped at different things.

School resumed and I tried to keep a normal light schedule. I was so tired I went home and took a nap! Pray for the kids in the school. Some saw more than they should have.

Riots after elections in Jos

2008-12-07T06:13:00.000-08:00

After local elections in Jos on Thursday, 27 November, riots broke out between Muslim and Christians because of unhappiness about the results in the early hours of Friday. School was cancelled on Friday and th area has been unstable since then. Our hospital was in the middle of much "noise". We evacuated by noon to another part of town that was quieter and safer. We returned to our house by Sunday. Things seemed quiet but losts of rumors were circulating and the decision was made to leave our compound again. We are about 45 minutes out of town and do not hear any gun fire from here.

I am sleeping better and not quite as jumpy. You know you are in a difficult spot when you tell your 8 year old that he can play outside but please come back into the house if you hear gun fire!!!

We hope to return to our house on Tuesday. Continue to pray for peace in Jos, Nigeria.

Planets

2008-12-07T05:56:00.000-08:00

We just finished our unit on Planets and had a great time drawing the planets on the basketball court. Well, actually only up to Saturn made it on the basketball court. Poor Pluto ended up across the campus near the track and bleachers. The kids loved it.

The day before I found a web site that allowed you to calculate the size of the sun through Pluto. I wanted Pluto to be larger than a pin prick so the Sun had to be 100 inches. I had not thought it through thoroughly and we went into the resource room and took the huge white paper and started measuring 100 inches. WOW. I needed 4 sheets of the stuff and after taping it together and rounding the corners as best as I could, had a HUGE Sun.

The kids went to music class and I went to the classroom to figure out how to hang the thing. We do have 10 foot ceilings but i couldn't quite reach. Some of the sun gets sat on in read a loud. Oh well. The point was made with the 100 inch Sun and the rest of the planets drawn by the students on the bulletin board to size.

http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/solar_system/
is the site to make your own calculations. It was perfect for what I needed.

I do know that Pluto is a dwarf planet, but as a class we rebelled and included it on our sketch :)