Back in the swing of things in Honduras

At the end of the month, we had a birthday celebration for all the children who had January and February birthdays. Seven boys and seven girls took a crack at the piñatas, a beloved tradition that ends with the children furiously scurrying for dulces. The honored received small birthday gifts like yo-yo`s, jump ropes, notebooks, colored pencils and markers. The celebration ended with the singing of Feliz Cumpleanos and a delicious cake with juice for all; a great end to the week.

Leigh and Eric are taking on the 24 energetic and smiley first graders. Many of them are progressing rapidly due to the benefit of having attended Kindergarten last year. This has made a huge difference in their familiarity with holding a pencil, knowledge of the alphabet and numbers. Last week they made hats containing all the uppercase and lowercase vowels as the photo shows them proudly wearing their new hats. They are now ready to move onto learning the consonants!

With the start of the new school session, the volunteers began a new session of English classes, as per the new Honduran curriculum. This year we are providing one English class for the oldest students in the primary school, almost 50 students, and two classes for the secondary school. All the classes have been a huge success to date. Marko has taken a lead in teaching all three classes and volunteers Pam, Eric, Lindsay and Leigh are helping by leading break-out sessions.

This format has been very successful as we are able to provide specific attention to small groups following the daily lesson. Despite all the students being extremely energetic about learning English, they often are timid. The small groups have allowed them to feel more comfortable practicing their pronunciation while allowing all volunteers to get involved.

Back in the swing of things in Honduras