We are ending our last full week of our trip.  We are shamelessly proud of the outcome of WEEKS of tireless work, and we feel that we have created a product that can be easily duplicated and shared in schools across the island to help students learn better and teachers teach better. I’d like to take this time to say a few words about the boxes and our project as a whole. As awesome as these cool plastic shoe boxes are, the purpose of our project was to create something that would affect the community on a larger level. What we have created are the first of what will be many similar lesson boxes. The purpose of the learning boxes is to create a very self-directed learning experience. All the lesson plans are designed so a student can come in and teach himself in a fun and very hands-on way. There are numerous activities to practice and reinforce the skills learned in each box so a student can check his answers and continue improving. The boxes were designed to be very low cost so they can be easily and cheaply duplicated. While we only made the first set of these boxes, PIER’s goal is to remake as many as 35 or more copies and distribute them in local schools. These learning kits will not only be a useful tool for students but also a way to help teachers to be more effective in the classroom. We created a total of 13 learning kits. 4 lessons in English, 4 in Mathematics, and 5 in Science. With that said, we thoroughly enjoyed the experience of creating something that will serve a positive purpose in the community.

Okayyyyyyyyyyyybye!!

Victoria (Sneha, Haritha, KC)

Wednesday turned out to be an incredible mid-week vacation day!

In the morning, Victoria and I got to visit a couple of schools. All of our grammar revision came in handy when the first teacher had us work with the kids on practicing their pronouns. We then played a fun story game, in which the kids got to come up with their own sentences and ideas individually, to put together a whole story. It was new for them but it got them talking and excited about us being there! The second school we visited was smaller, and for first graders and we had a great time there, reading a book to the children. We also really enjoyed all the flowers that a few kids kept running outside to pick and give to us while waiting for class to begin. The adventures of visiting schools was eye-opening and I hope we get a chance to go again before we leave.

After working at the center for a while, Patti, the person in charge of us volunteers, planned to give us a tour of the island of Roatan! This was when the real adventure began. We started our tour by first going to an Iguana Farm. It was incredible to be walking around so many iguanas! We got to feed them as well, which was scary at first because they would all start crawling on top of each other and yanking at the leaves to eat, but really cool. However, the scariest thing at the farm was definitely the turkey! A big turkey was just chilling with the iguanas, and as it started puffing up its feathers and walking towards me, I was definitely scared it would attack me.

We were all sad to leave the iguana farm, but excited to see the rest of the island, and Patti continued driving us along a very scenic route. Learning a lot about the different types of people who’ve settled here over the years, and stopping to admire the picturesque view every once in a while, we had an amazing tour of Roatan. We only got to scrape the surface of Roatan’s history and beauty, but we all loved every moment of it, and we came home exhausted but overjoyed at all of our experiences of the day!

Sneha

Today KC and I accompanied Brenda to one of the local schools to get a feel for the educational barriers we were facing. The first classroom – a Kindergarten one – had about thirty kids, all decked out in traditional white-collared and navy-skirted uniforms, huddled around two tables. Slightly peeling but colorful posters of the alphabet, basic numbers and the English words for different plants and animals hung from the bright yellow walls and sunlight filtered through the windows, giving the room a bright, positive glow – a precursor for what turned out to be a fantastic morning.

After the teacher introduced us to the class, we split into two smaller groups. KC read from the abnormally large copy of “Bear’s Walk” we had brought over from the Sand Castle Library-

-  while I got the opportunity to relive my childhood and work on an art project with the other half of the class. The kids were a little shy at first and preferred to quietly stick their fingers in the small tubs of red, yellow and blue paint to create their own Starry Nights and Girls With Pearl Earrings than listen to my pathetic attempts at broken Spanglish. So instead I painted a flower, which was later admired then subtly taken by a charming little girl named Jemima, who proceeded to add her own sun and blossoms to the menagerie.

The rest of the students painted houses, ships, fishes and of course, more flowers, all of which we ended up hanging on the walls alongside a hand-drawn diagram of the human body, adding an extra burst of color to the already vibrant room.

After a thorough hand-washing which still left traces of blue permanently etched into my fingernails , we proceeded to the first-grade classroom next door, were I was able to get my camera out for their very nice welcome message:

Same drill, though the level of artistic talent was heightened as the kids worked diligently on their paintings and eagerly shouted out answers to KC’s intermittent questions about what the bear saw while walking through the forest.

This time however, the kids were definitely not camera shy as I went around taking pictures. A picture that started off as a portrait of one quickly multiplied as more and more earnestly tried squeezing into the frame, displaying their brightest smiles, salutes and somewhat-suspicious-looking gang signs.

Then it was recess time! The kids ran out for a haphazard, utterly chaotic game of soccer, during which thirty little boys and girls all chased after the ball, boundaries and teams completely ignored, without keeping score or really caring about winning at all. They just wanted to have fun. I couldn’t stop smiling

Unfortunately then it was time to leave and KC and I said our goodbyes and were promptly smothered with hugs, kisses and shy Adios’s from the students. Definitely up there in the Top 5 moments where I’ve felt the most loved. The rest of the day proceeded as usual back at the center with Sneha and Victoria, but I sincerely hope that that wasn’t our last time seeing those kids.

Until next time,

Haritha

Week 3 complete!!
This week Sneha and I officially completed our English Boxes down to the last detail; binded lesson plans, materials lists, progress reports, labeled boxes…EVERYTHING!! And considering that we’ve been putting 4 or more hours a day into this for the last three weeks, this is HUGE. First things first though, they need to get critiqued. As much work as we’ve put into them they have to go through several rounds of reviewing before they will be 100% ready. We took them down to get looked over by the two teachers here at PIER who will likely be using them the most. Since they already work so frequently with the students they are the most aware of the needs and skill levels of the children. We got tons of positive feedback as well as a list of improvements to make. We’re taking our work into the weekend so the boxes will be ready to take to the kids on Monday. Having the kids try out the boxes will be our ultimate test, but we’re very confident in our hard work and we’re sure that they will love them
Now that it’s getting later into the summer a lot of the fruit trees are starting to bloom. We’ve got our eyes on some mangoes in the trees around the library. There are also these extremely delicious little island fruits that have started to bloom everywhere. The kids say the island name for them is kanup. This kid was wonderful enough to bring us a bunch while we were working yesterday morning.

We’ve taken on a really fun project this week. A cultural outreach club from Cornell University made a video and sent it here to the kids at PIER. The video is mainly just a way to introduce themselves and reach out. We showed the kids the video and they are all confident they can make a better one We’ll be filming all next week and I’ll post the video when it is complete.

Like every Saturday we met with the Teen Girls club this morning. Today we had a special project in store for them! Dancing!! The girls are all interested in learning any and all types of dancing. Today we taught them Salsa and Merengue. Thank goodness for dancing classes because between me and Sneha’s minimal backgrounds in salsa we were able to put together a really awesome collection of moves to teach them and they LOVED it!! Next week we’ll be doing hip hop

That’s all for now!!
Victoria (KC, Haritha, Sneha)

Hi!!

We are beginning week 3 of our trip!! We are very proud of how far the boxes have come. KC has been working very hard on the science boxes. She made an awesome lung model out of balloons a plastic bottle and straws. KC and Haritha have started working with some kids to build a robotics club where they can build their own robot and program commands for it. Sneha and I have started reading to some Spanish speaking students in the mornings helping them practice their English comprehension. This is also giving us a great opportunity to practice our Spanish comprehension.

In other news, it’s been raining every day for almost a week. That has made for amazingly cool weather and beautifully haunting sunsets. It’s the perfect working environment. We were able to make it over to the eating/ shopping area on Saturday  to enjoy an awesome meal at a restaurant on the beach. Good weather, good food, good work. Looking forward to another week!!

KC, Haritha, Sneha, and Victoria

Today was day seven and the learning boxes are well under way. We’ve gotten used to wearing Roatan perfume (mosquito spray) but the daily walk along the beach still amazes us. We spend the mornings in the shade putting together the lesson plans for the learning boxes. In the afternoon we work in what is called the BrainSpace center where children come in for educational games, homework help, and just a place to hangout. The children have gotten used to seeing us around and say hi to us all the time. Last weekend we met the group of girls that make up the Teen Girls club. We played several team bonding games and spent some time getting to know them. We are planning to help them create their own blog where they can display their writing and anything else they do. Our main focus is getting the boxes completely put together so we can start using them with the kids. We are hoping to have everything done by Saturday and spend a well deserved day relaxing on the beach.

Sneha, Haritha, KC, and Victoria