1st day at the nursery school!

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I had a wonderful day today at the nursery just looking and observing, they have asked me to do something tomorrow so I will bring in the parachute and play with that. They have beautiful grounds, where the kids can swing, play football, catch and other great outside games that do not involve many objects and things. Inside the classroom there are only 5 tables and about 6 chairs to each table, so some of the children had to sit on the floor mats that were made of straw, (I didn't bring my camera today annoyingly so there are no pics yet). There were about 35 children in the classroom ranging from 3-6 years old.



The classroom has no toys so the children have to sit and listen to the teacher. I didn't see any of the children writing as they were shouting out and singing along with the teacher. When I came into the classroom they were singing a song in Chichewa, they stopped to welcome me in. I gave a little speech saying who was and where I came from. The teacher carried on with the lesson.



I was very confused because everyone was speaking a mix between English and Chichewa. On average I could only catch between 1- 3 words in a very long sentence. When they sang 'Head Shoulders knees and toes' I joined in but got lost as their version is quite different to the one I know. We also sang songs about our fingers and one where we all sat down and swayed to the music. We then pretended to be Gorillas (I think) as they were hitting their chests and singing in what I think was Chichewa.



At around 10am we had breakfast that was called porridge but it wasn't. It was grainy and odd, with no sugar. (I later found out it was made with soya beans.) The children played outside for a while, when they came back we sung a song all about water. That water is good for us and that it is life. We covered all the Important uses of water, For example drinking, washing, bathing, and other things.



When it was nap time, it came all of a sudden, another teacher jumped into the room and shouted "IT'S TIME FOR SLEEPING!" the other teacher shouted back "ITS TIME FOR?" when the children shouted out "SLEEPING!" They all took off their shoes and lay on the floor. A few of them asked to play outside and they did, but most of the children stayed on the floor trying to sleep.



Once we were outside, I played football with the boys and swinging with the girls. It was really fun! I sat down with the teachers and talked about Malawi and things like how I don't have a boyfriend and don't want to get married yet. They were really shocked! For lunch we had Nsima (pronounced en-see-ma. I think) with beans and leaves of some kind. It was really salty and I ate it with my hands, the children were fascinated. We all went home after lunch.

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