Lusaka International Community School, Zambia

Our third school visited in Zambia this trip was the Lusaka International Community School – affectionately known by the acronym LIKS – which immediately brought the image of an ice cream cone to my mind. Visiting this campus was a bit like enjoying a dessert – the kids were sweet as coconut sorbet. We took a double scoop calling on the campus for two days.

Two days was just melted away here. We did three assemblies – one for the small guys – one for the medium – and one for the large – a veritable Goldilocks of presentations and our very favorite configuration. We have pieces for each age group and splitting them up into more exclusive groups allow us to really zero in on our audience with appropriately challenging material. Worked perfectly.

Our first day, after the assemblies, we dove into some writing clinics in the classrooms. We wrote list poems with the first graders – did some questioning poems with second graders – worked on understanding the difference between subjective and objective with the third grade and then composed personification pieces with the year nines. Everyone wrote and was engaged students and staff. The next day: Upper school assembly, definition poems, summary and metaphor.

Big thanks to John who was poet wrangle and administration rep. Again, pre-visit communication really made a difference. We fine-tuned the schedule via e-mail and text over the week before we came and once we arrived we slid comfortably into the flow of things like fudge over a sundae.

We definitely got our kicks at LICS!