Congratulations Graduates!

Tortillas

In honor of Guatemalan Independence Day, we've been exploring Guatemalan culture, art and history at La Escuelita Puerta Abierta. Last week we completed our learning unit by preparing one of the most traditional and delicious Guatemalan foods...tortillas! Our students loved squishing the moist dough in their hands and clapping them into tortilla form.

Celebration!

September 15th marked Guatemala's Independence Day or what we recognized at La Puerta Abierta as Guatemala's birthday. In honor of the special day, we organized a Dia del Campo to celebrate!

Creepy Crawly....

Ms. Candelaria has been focusing on animals at La Puerta Abierta. Our students have been learning all about vertebrates and invertebrates. We've read stories about animals, created animal art, and even went on an animal "safari" in our neighborhood.

We especially enjoyed learning about creepy crawly worms and some of us were brave enough to touch them!

N

I really love how our little artists painted their water color Ns last week. What talent!

Feliz Cumpleanos!

At La Escuelita Puerta Abierta, we make sure all our students feel loved every day of the week, but most especially on their birthdays. August has been a big birthday month at our school!

Experimenting with the 5 Senses

We're exploring our five fantastic senses at La Puerta Abierta. Here are a few photos of our students learning about the sense of touch.

A Giving Family Vacation

La Puerta Abierta received a wonderful visit from Danielle and her family last month. She hoped to create a meaningful and alternative family vacation for her children and mother. I invite you to read about her experience spending a week with our center in Santiago Atitlan and encourage other families to consider a similar volunteer oriented vacation.

My family volunteered with La Puerta Abierta in July 2011 for one week, and it was all that I had hoped it would be: an enriching cultural experience for my kids, a chance for us all to use our Spanish, a way to support some very meaningful and important work, and an opportunity to feel a part of a wonderful community (if only for a week!).

My twin 8-year olds, Zoe and Aiden, and I visited Santiago shortly after school got out with our offer to Amanda to use us in whatever way she saw fit -- we were open for anything. What that turned into was a whole host of small jobs spanning a week. My kids were mostly engaged in the preschool half of La Puerta Abierta during the mornings, assisting the 18 preschoolers with morning activities, preparing paints, singing and dancing with the group, helping clean up, and generally supporting the teachers in whatever way was helpful. They shifted between being participants (in songs, games, and even a parade) and being helpers for the little kids, and got to use the Spanish they have learned during their 4 years in our public Spanish immersion school. During class time, I was often in the library next door helping Chonita prepare materials for the week (LPA makes all their own educational materials, such as a poster on "los 5 sentidos" (the five senses) or "ninos del mundo" (children of the world)), or gluing in new activity sheets into the preschoolers' workbooks, or drying dishes from snack time. The separation was good, in that it helped my kids to act more independently and better focus on the needs of the kids and ways they could help.

We also had lots of chances to get out into other schools. LPA supports 8 other schools with supplemental materials and drop-in teachers. A typical "bolsa" contains several Spanish reading books for the teachers, plus some related enhancement activity for the local teacher to use in his/her class -- those bags rotate on a regular basis. Many of the materials we collected and donated as a school (Spanish books, school supplies, etc.,) find their way into these bags, and into the community beyond the four walls of LPA. We visited four of the 8 schools -- two in Santiago, and two outside in more rural areas -- for a few hours each with teachers Candelaria and Mildred. In both cases, we were invited to assist handing out materials or lead small group activities. My kids were often happiest when there was time to just play and kick the soccer ball around with the other kids.

Particularly in these rural schools, we all got a sense of the very basic conditions under which most Guatemalan students are learning. Classrooms are modest, materials are few, but the desire and the energy levels of the kids to learn is strong. In every case, Candelaria and Mildred were greeted with joy and lots of hugs by the kids. They represent a chance to have some fun with learning, by reading "Los Huevos de Dora" for example, and then painting their own eggs, which Candelaria posted onto "baskets" taped to the wall. Mildred brought puppets to bring life to the story of "Que dices tu?", engaging the students in figuring out which animal is making the "muuu" sound. Songs and active play are a big part of the LPA approach, and it is clear that it is a big part of what helps to excite the students about learning.

One of the classes we visited was one which had, some months earlier, prepared a "caja de tesores" for our elementary school. The treasures they sent up not only taught our students about life in Guatemala, but helped to facilitate an exchange of goods, so that when we came down in July with our donated treasures (assorted pencils and Silly bands and such from our school's 3rd grade Girl Scout troop), we were able to reciprocate their generosity. It was a true blessing to be able to deliver those treasures -- along with several materials that our students had prepared to describe life at our school and life in America -- to the kids in person.
We lived with a homestay family, which was wonderful. My kids adapted quickly to the food, the local transport, the modest conditions and lukewarm showers, and the work. This is the second such volunteer experience we have done overseas in a Spanish speaking country, and in each case, I have seen the kids grow and mature, and show sides of them that are not often evident to me in the craziness of our daily lives.

With any luck, we'll be able to return to LPA in the future and/or find other organizations in the future that are as willing to accept us as volunteers as Amanda and her staff have been. Amanda was conscious of ensuring that we had a good volunteer experience (that comes from our shared experience as Peace Corps Volunteers, I think...), and yet didn't go out of her way to entertain us -- which I respect, particularly given the many many hats she wears. That gave us a sense of autonomy and freedom that we used to explore Santiago. I would encourage anyone with the means and opportunity to do so to find their way to Santiago to spend some time with Amanda, Chonita, Candelaria, Mildred and all the other wonderful teachers at La Puerta Abierta. You'll come away inspired and changed, and with the knowledge that you have indeed have an "open door" waiting for your return.

Chopsticks!

During our last day of exploring world cultures, we put away our forks and ate our snack with chopsticks! Check out our chopstick talent.

Ninos del Mundo

We've just finished learning about world cultures at La Escuelita Puerta Abierta.

We made a Chinese Dragon and imagined that we were fire blowing creatures!

Juanita modeled a Japanese kimono for us.

We experimented with recipes from around the world.

And we made African beaded necklaces.

La Escuelita Meets Europe

As we're studying world cultures in La Escuelita, we were delighted to welcome Martin (Emma's dad) from Belgium and Montse (Oriol's mother) from Spain into our classroom.

What did Martin teach us? We learned that Belgium is a very small country that is famous for chocolate, french fries, waffles and beer. We also learned to count to 10 in French!

Montse shared with us about the foods of her country, the languages of Spain, soccer, and taught us a song in Catalan.

MUCHAS GRACIAS MONTSE Y MARTIN!

Parade!

This year, La Escuelita Puerta Abierta participated in Santiago's community parade celebrating La Feria and our local saint, Santiago. The theme for the parade was stories and legends from around the world and we chose to represent one of our class-room favorite read alouds, Bill Martin's Brown Bear, Brown Bear. Our students were simply adorable!

P is for Pancakes at Preschool

As we continue with our exploration of world cultures, we were so fortunate to receive a visit from Emma's grandmother (aka my mother:) who shared with us her favorite pancake recipe. Anne explained that pancakes are as common in America as tortillas are in Guatemala. We learned how to make pancakes and sampled them with honey for our snack.

Vegemite and Koalas

This month we're studying world cultures at La Puerta Abierta and we've invited guests from around the world to share their countries with us. Bree, from Australia, joined us last week and showed us a slide show of beaches, koalas and indigenous crafts from her country. She also taught us how to make vegemite sandwiches which we all tried and some liked:)

Shape Collages

I really love how our shape catagorizing murals came to life yesterday.

Here Comes the Band!

Miss Candelaria has been focusing on musical instruments for the past two weeks at La Puerta Abierta. We've made guitars, drums, and platillos during class. We also received a special visit from our music teacher, Montse who showed us a real flute!

We finished our music unit yesterday and celebrated with an instrument parade for our neighbors and friends.

Sometimes you just have to ask...

In early January we received a visit from Margee, a retired preschool teacher from Wisconson who was touring Guatemala with Farmer to Farmer, a grass-roots organization working in Guatemala to support peace and cross-cultural understanding. As we were just launching our new preschool program at La Puerta Abierta, we were delighted to have a vertran teacher on site.

Margee too, was inspired by her visit to La Puerta Abierta and amongst returning to the US, she started a book and supply drive within her community for our center. She began collecting art supplies and school materials from local libraries, elementary schools, and girl scout troops. She also sent a letter to Scholastic soliciting books in Spanish for our center and....4 months later, two big boxes of donated books showed up on her door step.

I continue to give thanks for our network of friends and supporters around the world who believe in our work at La Puerta Abierta and who not only sustain our programs, but allow them to grow and expand. Two of our biggest fans and supporters, Judy and her son Chris, made their second journey this year to Guatemala. In addition to bringing a suitcase full of donations collected amongst their church friends for the library, they also hauled our new Scholastic books to La Puerta Abierta.

Truly, I have received so much joy in my work...I'm living my dream and find my days filled with purpose and gratitude. I feel blessed that others can also participate in joyful giving from afar, sharing our story of La Puerta Abierta and caring for the children of Santiago Atitlan.

We send a heart felt thank you to Margee, Judy, Chris and SCHOLASTIC BOOKS!

Celebrating the Number Ten

We've now learned the fist ten numbers at La Escuelita Puerta Abierta, which is good reason to celebrate. Last week, we hosted a party in honor of the number 10!

We made necklaces with 10 beads (and then some).

We made the number 10 at the play dough table.

And we shared collections of 10 objects. Juan brought in 10 dinosaurs.