Duplo

Full konsentrasjon er viktig når man bygger med duplo-klosser! Barna på Happy Day er veldig glade i å bygge og leke med klossene. De blir flittig brukt i timene til de yngste, og til å leke med i friminuttene. 

Vi er veldig opptatt av god undervisning, men også at barna skal få leke. Lek er også læring.

Monthly Report for July and August

Report from July 2014, written by Teacher Margaret

The end of second term is here and we are most grateful to God and to all our family and friends .

We are a happy people after we were visited by Annelene and Erikah during the month of July.

We had a very good time with them. Thank you mama Erikah for the visit, advice, encouragement and for the presents which you brought from Norway and also those which were bought here. We now have spoons for all the children to use since they were using bare hands to eat. We also gave all the children a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste each during our closing day. We hope to continue teaching them on how to take care of their teeth and mouth. Most of them had never brushed their teeth before and are very happy to have a toothbrush of their own. Thanks to Annelene for the good initiative. We are happy to have you as our mentor.

We also want to thank all those who continue supporting us by either giving materially or financially and to all those who gave anything when Annelene was coming to Nairobi. We have lots of crayon from Norway and even some from Japan which were brought by Annelenes friend Mari Takano. Thanks Mari and come again to visit us. You helped put a smile on a child’s face.

We just did our end term exams and am proud to report that our children are doing very well.

We are still going on with our feeding programme whereby we provide porridge during breaktime and food during lunch time. The porridge is made using millet flour, water and sugar. During lunch time, we cook rice with beans on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. On Tuesdays, and Thursdays we cook ugali [ a mixer of maize flour and water] together with vegetables. We are planning on giving each child a fruit as from next term since we discovered that many of them never get to eat fruits at home. This will give them a better nutrition.

On or before we open school all the teachers are required to have a schemes of work which should cover a term or even a year. They must also have a lesson plan for each lesson that they teach. The lesson plan includes; the name of the school, the ages of the pupils, the number of pupils in the class, the time the lesson is taking place, the teachers name, the theme or topic and the sub theme, the teachers activities during the lesson, the childrens activities during the lessons, the activity area, materials to be used during the lesson and anything that the teacher may want to use during the lesson.

We hold staff meetings a day before opening day. During the meetings we review last terms events and also to plan for the term. During the meetings we check the teachers records, the schemes of work and the lesson plans to make sure that they are up to date. We also discuss on issues that affect the children especially absenteeism. During the last meeting that we held, we resolved to be having a follow-up on a child who is absent for a week. We did a follow up on Jane Wangari and realised that she had very bad wounds around her private part as a result of an infection. Her grandmother told us that it had started as a small rash which was itchy. She is currently getting some treatment and we hope that she recovers before we open school. We also discovered that Brian Mitinda was practicing truancy. The mother thought that he was in school and we thought that he was at home. I talked to him and we are optimistic that he will start coming to school regularly. The teachers have class registers which enable them to know the childrens daily attendance. They mark them on a daily basis. They also know their pupils individually and thus its easier for them to know how the kids are faring.

We hold parents meetings twice a year. The first one takes place during the start of first term and the second one takes place at the end of third term which is also the end of the year. During this meeting we discussed the matters that affect the children from the teachers point of view and from the parents point of view. We also get to analyse families abilities during the meetings. We also inform the parents on what we expect from them and they tell us what they expect from us as their childrens caregivers. The school will also from now on insure all the staff and their families with the NHIF national hospital insurance fund which will go along way in helping them during times of sickness. NHIF is a government policy. This initiative was discussed by Annelene Ror, Daniel Muli, Benhard Ndolo and Margaret Mueni when Annelene came to Kenya in July.