Still Learning

by Rachel

As for many people this year, we've had to be quite flexible to figure out a way forward with school in the Covid era.  We are very thankful that we've had the capacity to continue with in-classroom schooling!  And as most of you know, our teachers arrived, safe and sound, in early December so since Christmas Break we've been "back to normal" around here.  One thing that we've done in previous years that we've been able to continue this year is one of the kids' favorites, Learning Experience Day.  Once a month we take a break from regular school in order to focus on one specific subject, learning through nature walks, videos, games, and projects.  In past years we've explored everything from construction and solar panels to chickens and germs.  I thought I'd give everyone a brief recap of our themes from this year so far.  Enjoy...we sure did!

September: Owls and Raptors.  A throwback to a similar day from 2017, we were able to observe both a barn owl and several local hawks, in addition to learning about bird beak adaptations, dissect owl pellets, and sew cute baby owls from socks!

can you spot the hawk?

owl pellets

Bird "beaks"

October: Rocks.  While unable to actually tour our local quarry due to safety restrictions, we hiked to an overlook to observe heavy machinery mining and making gravel for the road.  We also had fun categorizing and observing rocks and minerals, and wrapped up by creating artwork and stories from rocks.

the quarry is behind us in this picture...dust from the gravel creation

 

A little mascot we picked up on our rock walk

Some story/rock art

November: Cows (and Cheese/Dairy): We spent some time learning about cows, dairy farms, and properties of milk before trying our hand at cheese making! (moderately successful, at least) In the afternoon, we got a tour of our friend Fidele's farm across the street from the hospital, where the kids got to see pigs, guinea fowl, chickens, and cows.  A worker even showed them how the cows get milked.

cow getting milked

January: Kingdom Fungi: With the arrival of new teachers, we didn't know we were also getting mushroom experts!  Steve and Mary took us on a mushroom hunt where we found a TON of different varieties growing around Kibuye.  We learned about fungus, yeasts, and molds (plenty of that in our wet and warm environment here), did some science experiments and observations, and made some spore print artwork.

look at the variety of specimens collected!!

spore prints

mushroom art!