In the past two weeks, Ecuador experienced a national strike in response to an increase in gasoline prices. Classes were suspended throughout the country as protests and roadblocks took place in all major cities. While the country seemed to be at a standstill, Casa Búho continued to hold classes and taught the students the importance of reading, exploration, and learning about the world in the hopes that by the time these children are our leaders in the future, we won’t encounter the same problems.
After our short break, Casa Búho entered October with a full schedule of activities and books revolving around one central theme: MONSTERS! We’ve split up the weeks into sub-themes, these first two weeks revolving around imaginary monsters.
Due to school closures, our morning and afternoon groups have been combined. Last week, the Mañana and Tarde de Lectura group started reading the tales of ¿Te Gustan los Monstruos? by Ecuadorian author, Leonor Bravo Velásquez. We then made our own imaginary monstruitos (little monsters) using watercolor and straws and finding a hidden monster in the blotches that they completed with googly eyes.
The next day, following some spooky tales from ¿Te Gustan los Monstruos?, the same group of kiddos made imaginary monster cootie catchers while also trying not to get tricked by the monstrous tongue twisters in our book.
Later in the week, as we continued reading stories from ¿Te Gustan los Monstruos? we created imaginary monster pencil-toppers so that their note-taking would always be accompanied by a spooky friend. Many of the students pulled their ideas from our book.
On Friday, our morning group organized with the staff of the Machalilla National Park to help clean our precious beach. While we didn’t explore any imaginary monsters, we encountered plenty of “monsters” of the sea— urchins, sea slugs, fish, snails, and more!
That afternoon, the Tarde de Lectura group learned the definition of symmetry and set to work designing an imaginary monster that is also symmetric! A lot of them were actually scared! More about using their imaginations to create a monster out of shapes, than anything.
Our Peque Búhos group has been busy exploring shapes, colors and the senses by creating imaginary monsters out of shapes and sensory items such as beans lentils. To spark their imagination of monsters, we’ve read Where the Wild Things Are and Go Away, Big Green Monster! Their creations were spectacular, hair-raising, and scream-worthy!
The Baby Búhos this week learned a song about eskimo kisses and cultivated a little bit of extra love in Casa Búho by sharing eskimo kisses with their moms. Then, just like the Peque Búhos, they explored their senses by creating sensory monsters of the imagination.
While the country was on strike, Casa Búho didn’t let that stop our kiddos from exploring and expanding their imaginations and kicking off October of Monsters with a bang!
