Pets and pavements in Perú

The vols have been cramming so much into the last few weeks here, especially as we only have 4 more weeks until the end of the academic year!

In English they’ve been following our new curriculum we recently devised and have started 1° & 2° on family members, with the children drawing their family trees to practise.

The beautiful sound of the vols belting out the alphabet song has also been reverberating around the school! To reinforce the letters and words, hangman was the order of the day! With the children beating us hands down! 5° & 6° in Triunfo were given an exam; Julia apart from putting an accent on a word got 100%!! 3° & 4° have also been tested on their numbers by playing multiplication bingo in English! Absolutely amazing! It’s all credit to the hard work the vols have put into making
fun and interactive lessons for the children.

The month of November celebrates forestation and animals here in Peru. 5° & 6° created a whole jungle scene, drawing plants & animals and presenting them, it’s in pride of place in the classroom.

Maldonado celebrated animal life by holding their 2nd Pets competition, i.e. all the children bring their pets to school! Yep as it sounds...pure chaos! But great fun!









We had a mixture of cats (most in costume!), dogs, chickens, guinea pigs, rabbits, ducklings, and my all time favourite...snails! Highly amusing when Ruth (teacher) asks the children what tricks their pets can do, most are highly talented in sleeping & eating apparently!

To teach the children further about forestation & plant life, we bought all the children at Triunfo a plant each which they then planted in the garden and are tending to.









There’s been a little in house bickering between the teachers over whose part of the garden (divided into 3 parts for each classroom) is better, we have to admit we do feel slightly sorry for Elizabeth as 1° & 2° were a little too engrossed in digging holes with what can only be called weapons!

PE has continued to be great fun and wear us & the children out! There’s been a lot of obstacle courses, tag (or sharks as we call it!) hand to eye co-ordination, relay races, and stuck in the mud.

We’ve now completed the swimming classes with 5° & 6° at Triunfo. In the final races, Jhon for the boys & Ireny for the girls really powered through!

Every single child demonstrated fantastic improvements, especially Estefany & Silvia whom wouldn’t even enter the water for the first few weeks! Elver also mastered the art of floating! Many thanks to the vols who braved the freezing water every week!

3° & 4° have been taught how to use dictionaries; we never thought we’d see the day when children are so excited to find a word! José wouldn’t participate in games because he wanted to continue looking things up his dictionary!

This month also is all about Children’s rights, so the teachers have done some classes with the children on this. Art has incorporated making banners related to children’s rights, and grades 5° & 6° have been given a responsibility project.

We’ve also a new member of the team in the Triunfo Inicial, Maribel (sister of Elver in 6°) joined us and is a lovely smiley girl, and this takes Lucy (teacher) up to 32 in the Inicial!

Sweet talking Lucy has also managed to obtain a small grant from the local council, and has spent it on fitting a nice floor in the Inicial. It really perks the room up, and is a fantastic surface for sliding on!!!

The Inicial were invited one Sunday to march in a parade in Huaranguilo to celebrate the town’s anniversary and the opening of a pavement (we’re not kidding)!
We’ve also of course continued to celebrate the children’s birthdays, so as to build their self-esteem and teach them they have a special day.

Each child brought in an egg and decorated it, and this egg for the whole month is their child! They have to care for it (i.e. don’t break it!) and bring it to school every day. So far so good, apart from the poor children of Julia, Ruben & Celia who all met a smashing end!

Pets and pavements in Perú