Day Fourteen: Monday, Greenie's Post

Greenie's Post:

I had an opportunity to teach KG 2 (S.K.) today and loved every minute of it. We worked on short vowels, kids did silent reading, and then I introduced them to dominoes. They enjoyed messing around with them, building houses, making letter shapes, and then learning how to use them for addition and subtraction. Later we worked on how to do simple division using unit cubes from the base ten block set.

While use of materials has not been consistent, it is something that captures the interest of the children at Tuskegee and certainly supports their understanding of the material they are taught.

Today was also the beginning of our last few days of this amazing journey in Ghana at Tuskegee. It was a day filled with activities that need to either be finished or come to a close. Both Joey and Kate resumed their work in their areas. Joey has been going non-stop and engaging more and more students (girls especially) in woodworking activities. Kate times her daily schedules of math lessons and plans her lessons in a very organized and engaging way. She is quite the expert at answering questions and sharing her knowledge in math and is leaving quite a mark on the teachers and students; I am sure will be teaching via e-mail for years to come.

Joey’s “team” of workers increased to include 7^th and 8^th graders and then several kids from different grades. Sanding, pounding, varnishing, sawing, filled the compound with wonderful sounds of progress and growth for the school. Joey is leaving quite a legacy at Tuskegee.

There is a lot going on today outside the compound as teachers reserve buses for the impending trip to Parliament tomorrow. Student representatives have been chosen from grades one through eight and were given a pep talk about going to bed early tonight, eating a good breakfast tomorrow morning, and coming to school with a clean uniform, clean shoes, socks, and the all important handkerchief. Students are scheduled to meet at the school at 6:00 a.m. It is a very exciting opportunity for Joey, Kate, and myself since we were able to attend the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in Chicago when Ambassador Agyekum was in town and now we get to see Parliament in Ghana.

I think we are looking forward to tomorrow’s experience at Parliament. So we will say goodnight and greet you tomorrow with another amazing day in Ghana.