I spent last weekend at wonderful Canopy Lodge in el Valle celebrating my 67th birthday, enjoying many beautiful birds and very good food. Our director has returned from her vacation so we are working as a team again - whew. I still have not mastered putting in a photo but there is one in my August entries. We are busy. Having 25 girls (17 are in Primary school) is a lot more responsibility and work that the 18 we had last year. At some points I am helping 4 or 5 kids at the same time - each doing something different. They learn to wait. Good news: Rosa has begun to work with me while I am working with other kids at the same table. This means that I can give her a lot more help. Last week she learned to know when she needed to borrow in subtraction and when not! She is also reading and was reading out loud from a 1st grade reading book - the beginning - we have waited for this for a long time. She is 11 and her mental age is 6 to 7 and she is learning the things a kid of 6 to 7 would be learning!! Our little Evelia is a handfull and when the director cme back Rosa told the directort: "When I was two and I did something wrong Tia Sue put me in a chair. You need to do that with Evelia". I have been using that technique and others and Evelia is making a lot of progress.
Blessings, Tia Sue
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
Monday -school pickups
I was the driver to pick up the primary kids from school today - which takes most of the afternoon. Tehn I worked with Rosa Mari on counting 2 by 2 to 20 and do subtraction with borrowing. After that it was Genesis and ordinal numbers and then Dona and simplifying fractions.
Graciela had an appointment with the nutricionista today which went well. Tomorrow I take Maria Isabel to the dermatologo.
I am learning how to give injections. A new skill.
Tia Sue
Graciela had an appointment with the nutricionista today which went well. Tomorrow I take Maria Isabel to the dermatologo.
I am learning how to give injections. A new skill.
Tia Sue
Sunday, August 19, 2007
A weel later..........
Things are good at the home. The girl I spent the night with at the hospital last Saturday has some more tests and she has a stomach acid problem. We will continue to work on this. She is taking some acid reducer and an antibiotic and is on a very restricted diet!
I have a new cat friend (Luna walked away on day about a month ago and didn't come back) and a new car! The cat is Fire Cat and is wonderfully soft and affectionate. The car is a Kia Picanto - a small silver hatch back with power steering and automatic shift which is makeing my left knee better with no clutch and the power steering is easier on the shoulders.
Last Sunday was the anniversary of my 10th year here as a missionary. I didn't get to church to be blessed as I spent until 2AM at Children's Hospital with one of the girls - a fitting way to celebrate 10 years!
There was little school last week as Wednesday was the celebration of the founding of Panama City in 1519. After helping a lot of Primary students learn about this event I will not forget that Panama means an abundance of fich, butterflies and the Panama Tree!
Saturday moring was the last Saturday of Social Service work from girls at LaSalle High School (Colegio La Salle) and they had a moring of games, dances and more games. The game 'pull up the yuca' in which a girl grabs a post and holds on very tight and then others form a line behind her and try to break her hold on the poll. Evelia (oe of our 5 year olds) loved it. Karla (the other 5 year old) wisely stayed on the sidelines most of the time. Yuca is a root vegtable and is hard to pull up! It is what tapioca is made from.
Rosa is learning to read along with three others beginning readers!!!! Among them the teachers are using 3 different methods of teaching so that they all need a different kind of help!
Blessings, Tia Sue
I have a new cat friend (Luna walked away on day about a month ago and didn't come back) and a new car! The cat is Fire Cat and is wonderfully soft and affectionate. The car is a Kia Picanto - a small silver hatch back with power steering and automatic shift which is makeing my left knee better with no clutch and the power steering is easier on the shoulders.
Last Sunday was the anniversary of my 10th year here as a missionary. I didn't get to church to be blessed as I spent until 2AM at Children's Hospital with one of the girls - a fitting way to celebrate 10 years!
There was little school last week as Wednesday was the celebration of the founding of Panama City in 1519. After helping a lot of Primary students learn about this event I will not forget that Panama means an abundance of fich, butterflies and the Panama Tree!
Saturday moring was the last Saturday of Social Service work from girls at LaSalle High School (Colegio La Salle) and they had a moring of games, dances and more games. The game 'pull up the yuca' in which a girl grabs a post and holds on very tight and then others form a line behind her and try to break her hold on the poll. Evelia (oe of our 5 year olds) loved it. Karla (the other 5 year old) wisely stayed on the sidelines most of the time. Yuca is a root vegtable and is hard to pull up! It is what tapioca is made from.
Rosa is learning to read along with three others beginning readers!!!! Among them the teachers are using 3 different methods of teaching so that they all need a different kind of help!
Blessings, Tia Sue
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Sunday News
I spent a lot of last night at Children's Hospital with one of the girls - something I have done quite a bit over the years. She felt bad all day but didn't tell anyone until about 8 PM - so we ended up getting back at 2AM! I have slept a lot today. She has gastrites. I will have to look into things a bit more tomorrow.
A new cat has entered my life. He is an adolescent and is a gold tabby. He has been here just a couple of hours and is rubbing against me, purring, eating, drinking and has used the cat box. He has been in a loving home for the past 2 months and was clearly a pet when he was found at the ministry of health buildings - he had a collar and had already been castrated. I have not didcovered his name yet!
My wonderful cat friend Luna who was with me almost 10 years left the house (he was an indoor and outdoor cat) and didn't come back about a month ago. I have many wonderful pictures of him with my new digital camera.
I'll try to report again soon and also get some more pictures on.
Blessings, Tia Sue
A new cat has entered my life. He is an adolescent and is a gold tabby. He has been here just a couple of hours and is rubbing against me, purring, eating, drinking and has used the cat box. He has been in a loving home for the past 2 months and was clearly a pet when he was found at the ministry of health buildings - he had a collar and had already been castrated. I have not didcovered his name yet!
My wonderful cat friend Luna who was with me almost 10 years left the house (he was an indoor and outdoor cat) and didn't come back about a month ago. I have many wonderful pictures of him with my new digital camera.
I'll try to report again soon and also get some more pictures on.
Blessings, Tia Sue
Friday, August 10, 2007
Hello again!
Hi - Here is my first picture on the blog! This is almost all of the girls (three were at acolyte training) with the La Salle students who had been doing 80 hours (quite a few Saturdays) of social service at the home on Saturday mornings. They help girls with home work of learn things they missed at some point in the past - many to do with arithmetic. We have another group now who have three Saturdays left.
I am learning how to put more pictures on and will write more later!!
Blessings, Tia Sue
Thursday, June 28, 2007
More Report Cards
It has taken a long time, since the first bimester ended the 18th of May,but we have 23 of the 24 report cards. Yesterday and today I went to the Primary School Republica de la India to get the cards from the 6 of our girls who go there. Sinilda and Maria Isabel, who when they came to us in January needed to learn how to use all the tools of school in a crash pre-school and kindergarten course have done very well in 1st grade. Their teacher had nothing but good things to say about them and their grades were fine. They both can draw well (and neither could draw anything when they first came)and one teacher mentioned the delicate drawing that Maria makes. As a reminder these two girls are the first women in their family to ever go to school!
Enibeth´s teacher´s (3rd grade) first comment was that she is in the clouds all the time, isn't paying attention. This is similar to much of her behavior in the home. She doesn´t want to study. Here grades were mediocher - but with no failures. ( My English spelling is getting worse and worse).
This afternoon my friend Amando built a duo-decahydron out of paper so I would know how to do it. The way we made it it looks a lot like a sphere. Two of the kids in 9th grade have to build a cone, cylinder and a sphere. Dr. Math tells me that it is not possible to make a sphere from paper. I found two ways, but the thing we built today really had 20 triangular sides, but becasue each side is a triangle within a circle and the edges are folded out it looks really sphere like.
Graciela needs glasses. She has been having a lot of head aches and finally yesterday I took her to an opticion and it is quite likely that her astigmatism in her left eye is causing some or all of the headaches. She should get her glasses next week.
Today I received the report cards of one in 4th grade and two in 5th. We have one more to get - 8th grade - but I would probably faint if she had a failure. That means that only one of our girls had any failures for the first bi-mester.
Estefany has improved a lot in reading - she is 9 and in first grade and has some learning challenges in language (but is better in math). I have worked with her almost every day and she is reading a lot of words and writing them too. I make a lot of vocabulary cards with the word on one side and some kind of little picture on the other side. The beginners can read the word and then check to see if they are right or they can look at the picture and write the word.
Estefany qualifies for special ed help because of her age and difficulties. The best part of this is that she will get a speech and language evaluation as well as eye and hearing test - free. God surely had a had in this as the director and I and Estefany were at the offices if IPHE (Special Ed) trying to get her inscribed and while the director was talking to verious people with no progress, one of the social workers there saw Estefany and I in the waiting room and started to talk to us. I gave a pitch for why I wanted Estefany tested and we received an immediate visit with the speach and labgusge person, got Estefany enrolled (even though she was born in Costa Rica and has no Panamanian identity numer) and an appointment both for vision and hearing.
More later. Tia Sue
Enibeth´s teacher´s (3rd grade) first comment was that she is in the clouds all the time, isn't paying attention. This is similar to much of her behavior in the home. She doesn´t want to study. Here grades were mediocher - but with no failures. ( My English spelling is getting worse and worse).
This afternoon my friend Amando built a duo-decahydron out of paper so I would know how to do it. The way we made it it looks a lot like a sphere. Two of the kids in 9th grade have to build a cone, cylinder and a sphere. Dr. Math tells me that it is not possible to make a sphere from paper. I found two ways, but the thing we built today really had 20 triangular sides, but becasue each side is a triangle within a circle and the edges are folded out it looks really sphere like.
Graciela needs glasses. She has been having a lot of head aches and finally yesterday I took her to an opticion and it is quite likely that her astigmatism in her left eye is causing some or all of the headaches. She should get her glasses next week.
Today I received the report cards of one in 4th grade and two in 5th. We have one more to get - 8th grade - but I would probably faint if she had a failure. That means that only one of our girls had any failures for the first bi-mester.
Estefany has improved a lot in reading - she is 9 and in first grade and has some learning challenges in language (but is better in math). I have worked with her almost every day and she is reading a lot of words and writing them too. I make a lot of vocabulary cards with the word on one side and some kind of little picture on the other side. The beginners can read the word and then check to see if they are right or they can look at the picture and write the word.
Estefany qualifies for special ed help because of her age and difficulties. The best part of this is that she will get a speech and language evaluation as well as eye and hearing test - free. God surely had a had in this as the director and I and Estefany were at the offices if IPHE (Special Ed) trying to get her inscribed and while the director was talking to verious people with no progress, one of the social workers there saw Estefany and I in the waiting room and started to talk to us. I gave a pitch for why I wanted Estefany tested and we received an immediate visit with the speach and labgusge person, got Estefany enrolled (even though she was born in Costa Rica and has no Panamanian identity numer) and an appointment both for vision and hearing.
More later. Tia Sue
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
This and that
Little Evelia is learnng / some things good and others we wish she wasn-t learning. She was pulling books off the book shelf this morning and one of the girls called to the child care worker, Judith. Mrs. Judith, Evelia is pulling books off the book case. Very clearly Evelia said / Shut up! *(all was in Spanish of course). On the other hand she can now put together the farmyard puzzle with no help / it is a one piece per hole in a nice farmyard scene / but this is progress. She is also using the lego type big blocks and building things. And, tonight I was very happily surprized. I was playing a picture bingo with Estefani and her older sister and had Evelia on my lap. She actually was able to spntaneously name a picture of a shoe on one tile! This is real progress from 3 and 1/2 months ago when she could-nt name objects and I wasn't sure how much she could see.
This morning I helped a ninth grader in spanish! She is studying poetry and she didn't understnad what she was susposed to do. She needed to learning what various conventions poets use were / each had a name *such as using opposits, describing some thing using other things "the sheep looked like a cloud with little feet' and then after reading some lines of poetry by Panamanian and other Central american poets look at the underlined section and identify what convention the poet was using.
After that came Dona, in 5th grade, puzzled about Statistics / most specifically bar graphs. In her class room the kids don't have math books so she had copied everything that the teacher had written on the board and was confused / I would have been too. I found a math book that taught the same material, we made a bar graph together / she had a little quiz and did well.
She was also studying for an English quiz on some kinds of food / which included, boxes of cookies, a dozen eggs, a carton of milk, as well as orange, meat etc.
That gives you an idea about some of the things I do daily!
More later
Tia Sue
This morning I helped a ninth grader in spanish! She is studying poetry and she didn't understnad what she was susposed to do. She needed to learning what various conventions poets use were / each had a name *such as using opposits, describing some thing using other things "the sheep looked like a cloud with little feet' and then after reading some lines of poetry by Panamanian and other Central american poets look at the underlined section and identify what convention the poet was using.
After that came Dona, in 5th grade, puzzled about Statistics / most specifically bar graphs. In her class room the kids don't have math books so she had copied everything that the teacher had written on the board and was confused / I would have been too. I found a math book that taught the same material, we made a bar graph together / she had a little quiz and did well.
She was also studying for an English quiz on some kinds of food / which included, boxes of cookies, a dozen eggs, a carton of milk, as well as orange, meat etc.
That gives you an idea about some of the things I do daily!
More later
Tia Sue
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