School has started in the Southern Hemisphere, and it's effect on my life is staggering.
It's partly my fault. I called the mission home to ask them how I could help, and they directed me this lady:
This is Sister Roundy and she is a powerhouse. She's lived in China for years teaching others how to teach. She gave me the rundown on all the educational help that the church is involved in, and how I could help.
She introduced me to Veronica. A miracle lady who got sick a few years ago and had to stay home. While she was home, she realized that there were tons of kids running around. She asked them why they weren't in school, and they told her that they didn't have anyone able to pay for school.
She started to teach them herself.
That turned into an "orphan" school that has about 170 students now!
We went to there opening ceremony where the Minister of Education came and gave them uniforms. Uniforms are an important moral booster for this school because every school in Vanuatu has uniforms, but as a westerner, I thought it was a bit too little in nonessential areas.
She has made her school so adorable with colourful handmade posters lovingly decorating ever wall.
Well, now I'm teaching there two half-days a week! I'm teaching English as a Second Language (with a little.....I mean a LOT of help from BrainPop's ESL.) and math. The way of teaching "maths" in Vanuatu is barbaric. It's the chanting math. "2x2 is 4, 2x3 is 6, 2x4 is 8." BLAH!
Rightstart's method of visually seeing math and understanding WHY is (in my humble opinion) a beacon of light in a dark chanting abyss.
I've already met a boy that I believe is dyslexic. I was helping him after I was teaching the classes because I realized he wasn't getting it, and when he wrote a five backwards, I fell in love with the little guy.
But that's not all! After I started that gig, I got called to teach the "extra class." It's a pilot after school program that my nephew (by marriage) started. That also is twice a week and quite involved. However not many kids have shown up yet.
Then I (well Dustin, but I was asked to help him) got called as the institute teacher, which is a religion class once a week.
Yep.
But that's not all! We are now unofficial foster parents to two little girls. There dad is figuring things out (not going into details here) and we have had them for a month and will have them at least a month or two more.
They were with us when their school started, so I was the one to register them and take them back to school shopping, and all that good stuff. Like I said on Facebook, as a homeschool mom, I've always been mildly jealous of back to school photos, and as a mom of all boys, I've been mildly jealous of shopping for little girl things.
Well, all my wished came true, I guess you could say, and although I was out of my element, we totally rocked it.
Note the super pink and sparkly backpacks. Oh yeah!
Thankfully, these girls are a delight, and I'm so glad they are in our home.
So yes, I'm teaching a lot.
We also made goals for the future:
And of course, the Walshes are still here, which has been wonderful and busy. Although they took a week to go to Santo (another island,) only to have a Cyclone hang out with them the entire time. Oops.
Steve has been our gardener and teaching Daniel how to garden.
And we've had adventures we might not have gone on if not encouraged, which is nice.
And here we go for subjects:
SCIENCE:
We've continued to learn about light.
One lesson, the one where we learned about reflection and shadow, was a complete fiasco. There were some tears in the end, and my big mirror got broken, and this photo accurately depicts my feelings about it:
The next club went far better. It was about the light spectrum including inferred and ultraviolet. I had brought a lot of stuff from Canada for this lesson including refraction glasses, prisms, and a blacklight.
We had FUN! Hallelujah!!!!!
SOCIAL STUDIES
So we have studied Benjamin Franklin including his kite electricity experiment. We made kites as in his honour.
We also have been learning about the bill of rights, but no activity.
Also, the kids have come with me a bit to the orphan school, so that's REAL social studies.
MATH
Maxwell
Hyrum and Daniel re-passed-off their multiplication tables
Hyrum:
Daniel-yep he seriously figured this out:
And William
LANGUAGE ARTS
Maxwell- Not sure where to put this, so I'm putting it here: Maxwell is done his 3d college course and this is a weird photo from his scanning app that he learned to use.
For his birthday he wanted to READ ALL DAY. A dyslexic mummy's dream:
Hyrum: He's been reading with our new house girl Maylene:
And Daniel has been plugging along with Barton:
William: He's very very close to being done with his Foundation Sounds. It has been hard but worth it. We needed to do hand signals to hear and practice the difference between the "L" and "R". Our hands represent what our tongues are doing.
