Various ramblings

Nelly my new classroom assistant friend has proved to be an asset and she plugs some of my language gaps with the children and has been quite proactive in finding materials for the them. Today for example she brought some work sheets on families and I found some postcard pictures of local people and got the three older children to start a piece of imaginative writing – they responded quite well to this but are unused to creative writing and I probably need to find some texts on which they can model a description or narration. As usual we scrub and feed the children and here they are cleaning their teeth!

I also made a bead number line and they took to it immediately now being able to overcome the shortage of fingers for counting. Most of the maths is calculation based but the children are not really secure in the basics of number and I am trying to do more practical stuff with them. Elsa who is 13 doesn't understand place value and I am stretching my memory and ideas to help her with it.

Last night we did another quiz night at Loki and made $100. Loki is a backpacker meca http://www.lokihostel.com/ but don't go there if you want to sleep at night because it is noisy and most of its inhabitants are there to party. Tonight's quiz is at Mandela's bar http://www.vivatravelguides.com/south-america/peru/cusco-machu-picchu-and-the-sacred-valley/cuzco/cusco-restaurants/mandelas-bar/ but last week we didn't get any punters so I am uncertain if it will run.

I have booked a further 20 hours of lessons with my teacher which will start on Monday after my trip to Machu Pichu. I will catch up with her this evening with the aim of helping her master Skype so that maybe we can keep in contact after my visit is over.

Yesterday I went spinning again and still find this very difficult due to lack of oxygen and I am unsure of my fitness. he photo demonstrates mor pain than gain!. I think I will try running up some steps later this week. I weighed myself and am below 12.5 stones, having maybe lost about a stone. I am pleased about this and hope to retain my weight loss over Christmas – some hope!