What a fun morning I spent today with students in an elementary school called  Institut Islamique Malick Mohsine Diop.   The school is a private one and a partial boarding school. The school sits right on the Senegal River.  Here is a view from the classroom. It is a Koran school, but one that also teaches other subjects. I have learned that some Koran schools only teach Koran memorization.  When we talked to the director, he told us that it is important teach the students other languages and subjects because they need to be able to communicate and function in society.

My partner teacher Katie and I started the day in an introductory English class. Our host teacher, Abdourahnane, told us that his primary emphasis is get them to love learning the English language.  He uses a lot of cartoons and songs to accomplish this. They greeted us in this video (video coming soon) They were very proud to recite for us a pledge for us about their country. They sang a little song for us about chopping a banana.  Click here to see them singing.  Then I taught them the Hokey Pokey.  They loved it!  I had so much fun singing with them and watching their little laughing faces.

Next, we passed out some of the bookmarks that our students in the US made to teach them about our country.  We asked them to make some book marks for our students.  I was amazing at their level of concentration. They wanted so badly to impress us!

Probably the best thing about the whole day was teaching them to “high five” us.  Once they started, they couldn’t stop.  I must have “high fived” three hundred times – no that is NOT an exaggeration!  When it was time to leave, they followed us out into the street, still with the high fives.

Being at an elementary school was so much fun and the children were so cute.  However, it made me miss my high school students.  I miss talking to them and teaching them and they are nowhere near as exhausting as five year olds!  Guess I am where I was meant to be!