Yesterday, I had a maths lesson with Class 2 first and I decided it would be good to work on their times-tables. So i'd write the sums on the board while they would call out the answer in unison. We would go through this saying 'one times two is two, two times two is four' etc outloud altogether. Then I rubbed out the answers and got them to call out the answer this way...including jumping around and not going in order to distract them. I would say 'four times two is' and they would shout out the answer. Instead of just saying it, I made sure I made it a bit more interesting and shouted in different voices - high and low, loud and quiet, fast and slow etc, which they found hilarious. This was the same for the 3x and 5x. I then wrote out all of the sums and they had to copy them down in their books with the answers (neatly ofc). Time flew and I had run over into breaktime. I asked if they wanted to carry on tomorrow, but they said no they wanted to finish it then. I must have done something right. Gradually the class started to leave as they finished, but \I noticed one girl taking a very long time and looked very lost, so I went over to help her one to one. She seemed to find it very difficult: this would have been the perfect opportunity to wack out the plastic coloured counters, but of course, there is a huge limit on materials. So i ran around each desk stealing pencils to start making piles of 3 to explain the sums better. This seemed to work!
Next, I had English with Class 3 and I decided to practise verbs and adjectives and pronouns and nouns. Learning verbs was brilliant because I made sure they understood the definition while then asking for examples of different verbs which we would then all act out (i.e. running on the spot etc). We then played charades of different verbs which they found hilarious. After this I wrote 5 different words on the board and told the class to make sentences using the different words. I chose 'flying, silver, Ghana, quietly and they'. Lots wrote about the pots were silver and the bird was flying, but some clearly had a vivid imagination and wrote some lovely things. (will write down exact examples next lesson). I marked their work and I have never seen such excitement at seeing the words 'brilliant' and 'fantastic' with a smilie face. Some were dancing around, some were beaming, some came to show me as if I didn't know when I had wrote it hahaa.
Today, I was teaching English first thing with Class 3. When I walked into the class I was handed a letter by the students, which was from them saying that I am nice to them, I am very kind and beautiful and thanking me. It was absolutely lovely! I recapped the verbs, which involved a lot more running on the spot, jumping on the spot, singing and dancing as well as recapping adjectives and nouns and pronouns. I then thought it would be a bit different to focus on punctuation; today we did the full stop and question mark. I drew each on the board and asked what they were, which everyone could answer, but noone was comfortable enough to answer what is fullstop is/what a question mark is. I taught them the definition and when its used etc, which they all eagerly wanted to write in to their notebooks. We then did some examples of each. As an exercise I wrote a short paragraph on the board with no full stops or question marks: My name is Angela what is your name I am 10 years old how old are you I live in Ghana where do you live my favourite subject is maths what is your favourite subject. They then had to fill in the correct punctuation mark in the correct place. I then marked this and wonderfully everyone scored at least 6/8 or more! I felt very proud of them and of myself. And of course I wrote some nice feedback in their work, which they were all ecstatic about...again! Wonderful!
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