January Blog

Hello everyone!

Sorry for the long delay in posting an updated blog. We have been experiencing some difficulties with our Internet key in Boulsa and we are just busy. Whenever we find a free moment to post the blog the Internet key decides it does not want to work. Luckily we finally got the Christmas Blog and the January Blog up :)

January has been pretty good for both of us. We are both rather busy with school. Tim is busy teaching the students how to type on a computer. These students hunt and peck all the time. I am relatively certain that any five year-old in the US could type faster than these kids. After two weeks of using the typing program the students started whining that this was boring and they wanted to continue on to something else. Tim really did not want move on to something else because the students had not learned what they needed to learn. I told him to have them cover their hands and type without looking. Tim thought that was a pretty great idea. Now every day of class, the students have to type the following sentence at least five times: The quick brown fox jumped over the very lazy dog. Needless to say the students are not particularly thrilled to have their hands covered up while they are typing. It’s actually quite comical to watch them try and slouch down in their seats far enough to look at the keyboard.

As for me, I am busy teaching my sixth graders how to calculate the area and parameter or a circle, round numbers, compare two numbers and the basics of fractions. The circle was a breeze. They all memorize the formulas by the next class period. Rounding numbers was a little tricky for then in the beginning. They had a hard time remembering the rule of 5 or greater and you round up, but after a blackboard filled of examples, they finally got it. Comparing numbers was one the best lessons I have ever given. I explained how < and > were the mouth of a crocodile and every crocodile would rather eat more food than less. Of course I did a couple of great demonstrations for the students were I turned some of them into birds and one student into a crocodile. The “crocodile” had to choose the group of “birds” it wanted to eat. All of my students think I am insane now, but I bet you they will never forget how to compare numbers.

My seventh graders have been busy learning how to draw and calculate the volume of cylinders and prisms, multiplying positive and negative numbers, factorization and development, and exponents. They had some trouble learning how to draw perspective drawings of prisms, but after a week of practice, they were back on track. The multiplication was really straightforward for them once they memorized the rules. Factorization and development was one of the easiest chapters for them. I was able to complete the entire chapter with them in 2 hours and that included 30 minutes of exercises. Our current chapter is the exponents. There was some confusion in the beginning between the difference of doubling a number and squaring a number. After a little explaining and several examples everyone caught on. They love figuring out scientific notation.

Tim went to the IT meeting at the end of January. The committee got a lot of things completed. If you would like to check out the website for PCBF it is maintained by the IT committee. Peace Corps Burkina Website. I had a VAC meeting the last weekend of January. The meeting went very well. We were able to get several accomplished with our meeting. We also held elections at the meeting. I am the new President for VAC. Emma is the new Vice President. Althea is the new Secretary.
Tim and I are trying to schedule town meeting for Boulsa to inform them about Camp Glow. Our school’s Secretary is our counterpart for this project. She is going to help us do everything for this camp. We will post more information about Camp Glow soon.

All and all life is going pretty good here in village. We are starting into a very busy time. We have Friends of Burkina Faso in country right now. A site visit from our Country Director as well as our APCD scheduled for next week and March. Tim and I are playing in a softball tournament one weekend. Then we have a meeting for Camp Glow another weekend. I have another VAC meeting. Tim is trying to get another IT meeting scheduled and we have the end of the second trimmest at the end of March as well as our Close of Service Conference. WOW! Talk about being busy. We still have to find time to give exams during all of this as well!

Pictures to come in 2 weeks and February Blog!