School Kids - July 5

On Thursday we visited the CSIR Basic School in Kumasi. We got there as the students were starting school by singing patriotic songs; they ended their assembly with a Happy Birthday song for one of the teachers with the same melody that we are familiar with in the US, but with many verses.  We split up into two groups and went to each grade (K-5) to show science demonstrations to the students.  A lot of our demos involved balloons, some involved water, and we also did a hands-on lesson on circulation and respiration. 

Both the kids and the headmaster were very excited to have us visit.  The headmaster emphasized the need for real life examples of concepts in classrooms.  The kids were having a blast with the lessons, but had even more fun at break time when Clayton blew up a balloon for them to keep off the ground, but when the inevitable happened and it popped, he was mobbed with requests for another balloon.  Another fun thing we did with them was play music.  Mollie got out her harmonica and tooted a few tunes while they sang, including Old MacDonald, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Happy Birthday (again), Jingle Bells and Joy to the World, before they exhausted common repertoire and the children continued to sing many more songs, which sounded like children’s hymns. 

Kids+Balloon

Before we left, we presented the headmaster with a set of donated speakers to use in the future for setting up a video chat between Houghton school children and the Basic School.  He was very pleased, especially because the school should be receiving electricity very soon. 

After our busy time at the school, we went with our friend Cornelia to the market to buy some more fabric for Clayton and Chelsea and then to her favorite seamstress to measure the girls for their dresses. It took much longer than expected to pick designs and get the details smoothed out, but Cornelia was extremely helpful and the boys made friends with the neighborhood kids in the mean time.  We are very excited for our clothes to be ready in a few weeks!

On the way back to our guest house we stopped to buy rice, tomatoes, onions and cracker/cookies (called digestives or digestive biscuits).  Then we made dinner in our room with the rice cooker that was left by last year’s Pavlis group.  Our first home cooked meal!