The walls of Casa Búho echoed with laughter and the Spanish rendition of “walking through the forest” once more this week as we wrapped up September in the selva (jungle). Coastal schools were on vacation this past week, allowing us to have quality time with the majority of our búhos!
Our Mañana de Lectura group has been especially hard at work, (three mornings this week as opposed to their usual two), preparing a project for our November Inauguration. They have spent time studying the animated art of stop motion, and are working hard to put together an animated story based on one of our very favorite books. We won’t share too much in order to save the big reveal for our inaugural night, (November 16th, don’t forget to mark your calendars), but the students have quickly developed skills not only in leadership, but art, directing, and filmmaking!
Mi Tarde de Lectura students continued learning about the many animals of the rainforest, more specifically those facing extinction. On Monday, we discussed the Chorongo (woolly monkey). We then made monkeys out of paper to add to our newly developed “theme” board that will be changing with our monthly theme from now on.
On Tuesday, we discussed the rhinoceros in honor of the International Day of the Rhino which is this Sunday. While they are not habitats of our beautiful Amazon Rainforest, they too are facing extinction which inspired many of the students to inscribe messages of environmental protection on the mini rhinos we crafted out of construction paper.
Friday’s afternoon class read a legend about a girl in the Ecuadorian rainforest whose tears over the destruction of her home cleaned the polluted rivers. To recreate the mariposa (butterfly), the kiddos made suncatchers with a pre-cut pattern and an array of tissue paper.
Baby Búhos had a hoot finishing up their Septiembre Sensorial sensory books. They explored both hard and squishy textures by making the trademark Casa Búho owl with googley eyes and jungle leaves out of foam. The moms took the books home this week in order to continue instilling the exploration of sight and touch in their babies.
Thursday’s Peque Búho’s session explored the animal kingdom in a book that encouraged them to find the hidden animals but also taught the increasing danger of extinction and habitat loss facing several animals. Afterwards, we made snakes out of a chain of construction paper on which the students practiced drawing patterns and shapes.
This Saturday morning, we rounded out a fantastic September in the Amazon Rainforest by joining local forces to help clean up the oceans. Our team- Búhos Anti-Basura- won the trash collection contest! Just going to prove that our kids ARE our future and we need to preserve our planet for them. Go check out our Facebook post on the event here.
This week, we also said goodbye to our French volunteer of three weeks, Margaux. She has been an enormous help to our Machalilla and Casa Búho community and we wish her the best of luck on her continuing education. We also hope to see her back in Ecuador in the future. Thanks, Margaux!
Casa Búho is closed for the coming week, so a new weekly summary won’t be available until October 5. We have a super exciting month coming up, so we hope to see you then!
