Katie at school

Katie has been volunteering at Wellspring Academy 4 days a week. While she is still busy in the library, more and more time is being spent helping in the classrooms. Her main role has been to assist one child in particular from the early years room who struggles with reading. While still following the normal routine of the day, she is there to help at certain times particularly with reading and writing activities. This also involves some one-on-one time for reading.

After finishing the loan cards for all 2000 + books (plus 3 other boxes), Katie is now in the process of labeling each book. This is found on the spine or bottom left corner of the front cover and makes finding and re-shelving books much easier. It even makes the library look like a real library! So when she is not assisting the younger children, or listening to stories whilst colouring in in the upper grades’ classroom, she can be found in her little corner in the library labeling books.

The school has actually been on vacation this week, so Katie has had a week at home. It’s always nice when unexpected holidays pop up! Next week is homeschooling week: children who are homeschooled join the Wellspring children (at school) and spend the week learning about a themed topic. This time it’s Africa.

The children are put into 4 mixed groups. Throughout the week they rotate around different activities and then at the end of the week, they put on a performance for their parents. The idea is to not only give homeschooled children the opportunity to socialize with other children but to facilitate learning through different means and methods than that of the regular school curriculum and routine.

On Fridays Katie has not been working at Wellspring. She stays home to rest, re-couperate and work on the little things we don’t seem to have much other time for. This can include visiting the veggie man for fresh fruit or veg, drafting blog entries, or general email maintenance. She also gets to enjoy meeting with SILers and other staff at coffee break time. More recently, she spent some time experimenting with the camera around the centre.

From this week onwards, Katie will begin spending her Friday mornings looking after a 5 year old Fijian girl. Her parents are with another mission and as their daughter is so young, often one of them must stay home to look after her while the other visits Chadian families in and around N'Djamena. Allowing them both to be free for a morning has been an answer to their prayers. God works in crazy ways!