This year I have started something new with the students in hopes of encouraging them to better their grades but also to remove top students from remedial classes to let teachers focus more attention on students that need help. I set up four extracurricular clubs to meet during the day’s remedial classes (3:50-4:30 pm) for students who scored a 70 or above on the mid-semester test. In addition if they scored less than 70 on any individual subject they would not be eligible for a club that met on the same day as the remedial class for that subject. In addition for extra perks, I allowed those that scored 90 and above first pick of clubs then those that scored 80 and above and finally the rest that were eligible. This played a factor with the games club which filled up first.
So the four clubs were Monday-Games, Tuesday-Conversations in English, Wednesday-Reading/Writing and Thursday-Art. I was not surprised that games was the most popular club and had to put a limit of 20 students to make sure I could spend time with them all. I thought art would be the 2nd most popular and the hardest to get in since I wanted to keep that group small at 10. But it was reading/writing that was the next to fill up. The least favorite was Conversations in English which also did not shock me.
Games club is often the hardest to do because so many students with lower grades keep trying to sneak in. Then the fact that the teacher’s don’t like remedial classes so they often ring the bell late to start and early to end means all the clubs start 5 to 10 minutes late and end 5 to 10 minutes early. In games club I have the younger classes play connect 4 and the older kids play Boogle. I also make them switch up partners so they don’t just play with their best friends. I like to go around and “play” a round of Boogle with each group just to show them how many words they missed and let them copy my list to increase their vocabulary (the perks of this game being in my native language).
This week we added Horseshoes to their list of games and they all enjoyed it. I bought three sets of the game at the dollar store for $3 and yes they are plastic which throws me off when I try to play with them. They were all fascinated with the idea of a leaner and we had club wide celebration when Dorice got a ringer. That is one part of games that has not been hard to teach is good sportsmanship other than no cheating. They do a good job of congratulating others.
Next week I am going to do some Yahtzee games to help with math.
The Reading/Writing club quickly changed to the reading club as I had trouble getting them to write their thoughts about what they read and instead just copied the book. That is a problem here after all their classes for the entire time in school and preschool is about copying something off a blackboard or from a textbook. Getting them to switch gears and just read and then write some type of summary of what they read is difficult for them to grasp.
I did find a group of books for the higher grade levels to read about a group of kids that have adventures. This allows them to finish a book then trade for another in the series. I spend time with the younger students helping them read their stories aloud to each other and stop to question them about what they see in the pictures compared to what we just read.
I am really proud of this group, their last test performance was outstanding. The youngest group went 1, 2 and 3 in their class. The two groups of older kids both moved up in their class placements and average grades. Vanessa and Gertrude got 3rd and 4th in their group. Stewart got first in his class for the first time. Baraka moved up to #5 just barely missing the top three by 3 points.
Conversations in English club is my smallest and only features Standard V students which I thought would make it easy to get some great conversations going, but alas I have had to dial back my enthusiasm some, actually a lot. We focus on two exercises every week. The first are a bunch of starter topics where one student asks another a question like “what is your favorite subject” and then they have to keep it going by asking follow up questions. Unfortunately they get stuck on “why don’t you like other subjects” or something close. I have given them the questions I would follow up with and how to build a conversation instead of just questions that sound more like an interrogation.
The other exercise is “Who/What am I?” where I have cards with type of person or object and they have to describe it for me without using the name so that I can guess what is on the card. This focuses on having them come up with descriptions on their own of something. Another game they are not used to so I spend most of the time explaining how to describe things. I may do something like 20 questions with them next.
Many of you were probably thrown aback when I said I am leading an art class as my only artistic endeavors lie in photography and writing. I can draw how to build something or what a building looks like pretty well but they are going to look like engineering drawings. I am horrible at drawing living things especially people. Some cars continue to defy my abilities as well.
Not to worry, Bradsartschool.com has YouTube videos that are hopefully rescuing me. This class has benefited by a generous donation from I think a Sunday school class at Zion UMC in NC. They donated a generous sum for art supplies, so I was able to get pencil sketch sets and drawing journals for them to use in the class and take home after we are done.
The videos focus so far on drawing shapes (which they are familiar with) and then using the shapes to construct more complicated items. This would work well except when I give homework to draw something like their house or a non-living object in their house I get a bunch of attempts of drawing somebody doing something from one of their textbooks. They keep wanting to jump to the end instead of practicing the basic skills. We will be doing faces in the coming weeks.
The clubs will continue until I return home. I hope to get start back up based off grades from their end of semester testing and have more kids wanting to participate. Any suggestions on clubs I could start or ways to make these better if we keep them next go around? Just let me know.
Please don’t forget I am looking for speaking opportunities in July, August and 1st week of September. Please contact me at steveintanzania@gmail.com
