Update

Well I'm feeling rather bad that I haven't posted for a while. I was feeling quite under the weather last week; I didn't go to school on Wednesday and was still a bit weary at the weekend, so didn't do much at all on Saturday. Then on Sunday I had an eventful afternoon, much of which was spent at a local hospital, because Dee's stepmother had a nasty fall while we were out for lunch. She's getting better now but she came right down on her face and did quite a bit of damage, so needed to be checked out.

So what with one thing and another, and my failure to get to bed early enough, this week seems to be hurtling past so quickly and I'm tired out by the time I get home. And tired out doesn't make for a good post, so I'll try to get on and stop rambling! Here's what I've been up to:

•  Having meetings

(This one's just to prove I was there!)

We had a meeting a while ago now with all the staff and some of the trustees which was long but good I think. We were mostly discussing next year, when we plan to take in an extra class so we have two baby classes, and there will now be fee-paying places alongside the normal places. The aim is to make Mahali Pa Watoto a little more self-sufficient as it currently relies largely on funds raised in the UK. There is a lot to be done practically to prepare for this and we would value your prayers.

We also met last week to discuss the teachers' visits to the Montessori nursery. Most of them really enjoyed going, and thought the place was wonderful! However, it's clear that many of them still didn't really see the independent activities that the children were doing as learning - rather they seemed to think that unless they were with an adult they weren't actually learning. And because they don't get started on formally learning letters and numbers as early as ours do (which is far too early in my opinion) the teachers saw those children as 'behind' ours. It's hard for our teachers, who have been through a very traditional education themselves, and have been trained in traditional teaching methods, to accept that there is any other way. But I think gradually they will start to see the benefits of using play and letting the children make choices. One thing that was suggested is that we use a spare classroom as a 'Montessori room', where we keep all the equipment, instead of each class having a small selection. The room could be set out like the rooms they saw, with no tables and chairs, just a big carpet space, and child-level shelving around the walls with the equipment there for them to access freely. I wasn't sure about this to start with, but actually I think it could work well and I'm quite excited about it.

One of the shelving units at the Montessori nursery

Lucy doing an activity on the carpet!

• Teaching groups

I've really enjoyed doing this (have I said that already?!) although it's been a bit on and off with the nursery visits, my day off sick and the fact that this week was assessments anyway so the children all had to be in class. But it's been rewarding to see the children making little steps and most of all having fun learning!

• Holding a choir each day (and trying to get better at the guitar!)

•  Helping do some cutting out for the card-making group that Dee has started up with a few of the mums and Joyce (teaching and kitchen assistant) This project has been a real eye-opener to me; the mums mostly have little or no experience of using scissors and glue, of straight lines and spacing and all the things we take for granted when we make a card. But they're coming along nicely :-)

• Mopping the floor!

We all have our allocated rooms to mop on a Tuesday and a Friday - actually this isn't my area but my room wasn't too bad so I did a bit of the veranda too - one of the mums was doing most of it in lieu of a food contribution for this month.

• Generally having lots of fun with these amazing children!