I thought I would do some lessons based on water on Thursday and Friday to tie into the Water Festival this weekend. This was hampered slightly by having no translator due to a misunderstanding between the office and Pisey. I thought she might have been ill because she is three months pregnant and not having a very good time but she had been sent to do another job. This type of situation is quite normal here - things can be quite random. However, back to the water. My starters are on ABC games and flash cards (which I made myself with local pictures as far as possible):
They had just about got onto For is for Fish which was fine but my more advanced ones who are getting to the end of the phonics alphabet and forms of To Be just couldn't get their heads around things to do with water because, for example, rain comes with sun and other types of weather not with boats, fish etc.
So, what does the teacher do? Well, just abandon that idea and get them to give me the names of fish and other sea creatures for which we develop silly movements eg crab goes click click click, and sing it to the tune of the Wheels on the Bus. My rendition of a jellyfish going gloop gloop gloop had them rolling about laughing.
The colouring of fish and rather strange four legged octopi I'd cut out went much better - as you can see here there was much competition who could get their drawing highest on the wall. This is Piseth who seems to have won! The children don't have much concept of pattern so you end up with wodges of single colour or if one comes up with a new idea eg shark with teeth, the whole row will copy it. They are very good and quick at word search, crosswords, spot the difference etc though so you have to have another activity ready for them when the complete it quicker than you anticipate.
As I was on my own one of the older girls decided to play a trick and tell me there was no school on Friday but came back at the end of school to say this wasn't so. So I went in on Friday to be told that there was no school on Monday and Tuesday but this was by the Director so must be true. This is indeed to celebrate the local Water Festival which has now been cancelled because of too much flooding in the Province. As I say, random.
I have taken the opportunity of four days off to have a quiet day today (Sat) with a stroll down to the river this afternoon to see if there are any boat races (just in case) with a visit to the athletics circus tonight which everyone says is very good. I will then go back to the Angkor temples with Mr J over the next few days for another look at the main ones and to see some out of area older ones. One complex is quite near to his parents' house so I have suggested he leaves me at the temples and goes to see them, coming back later to pick me up.
Oh, and I've lost my copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar as Pisey borrowed it for her little boy who's four and he likes it so much that he's taken to sleeping with it so there's no chance of wrestling it back. There's no where in Siem Reap to get any similar books - the only children's ones available are American moralistic tales or TV tie ins. These would be at the top of my packing list for a future visit. My copy of What the Ladybird Heard has been so popular especially as the children have a card with the name of one of the animals in the book and make the appropriate noise when we get to that point in the story. The Gruffalo is a big hit too but I did have to explain that there's no such thing!
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