Each year in the end of September Namibian schools have a national readathon or at least they are supposed to. One school that does participate is Danie Joubert Combined School.
This year I was invited to read to the grade four classes that I taught during the first term. While I was their substitute teacher I read them Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type as part of a unit on communication. It was great fun and they kids LOVED the book. Not only did it have many different examples of communication in it, it was highly entertaining with cows typing letters to the farmer demanding electric blankets because the barn is cold. I promised the classes that I would look for the next books when I was home in the US. Thanks to my generous mom Danie Joubert Combined School now has a nice hardcover copy of Click Clack Moo, Giggle Giggle Quack, and Duck for President. During readathon week I got to present the books to the school and read Giggle Giggle Quack to both grade four classes. It was really fun for the kids and also for me since I miss being in the classroom and really enjoy sharing books with kids to get them more interested in reading!
In addition to reading with the grade fours, I was also asked to be a judge for a costume contest. On Friday of the readathon week kids could come to school dressed as their favourite character from a book. There were so very good costumes demonstrating the creativity of the kids and their interest in reading! It was such a fun competition and a nice way to promote reading in the school.
The readathon week ended with a school wide 30 minute period of reading. I brought books for the grade fours since they do not have a classroom reading corner and they read the whole time exchanging books quietly when they had finished one. Even the ones who can't really read were trying and looking at the pictures. It was such a nice scene. Also this week, the second of two boxes of donated books from Dani, a former volunteer in Mariental, arrived for the school library. This school library is actually functioning and utilized by the learners at the school!
If you would like to donate books to the Danie Joubert school library, here is the website for it: http://www.thelibraryproject.org/volunteer_display.cfm?VID=1003 If you do send books, please do include a note and a return address because they like to be able to send a thank you and know where the books came from. Thanks!
If only ALL Namibian schools valued reading enough to have school wide reading periods and use them, to promote library use, to share the nice books in their libraries with their classes! If only...well, at least for this week there was some emphasis placed on reading :-)
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