Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Tropical Storm Hits Quepos

Last night a tropical storm swept through Quepos and hit most of the Central Pacific coast last night leaving most neighborhoods without power and closing many roads due to fallen trees and light posts. Because Quepos is below sea level, it is especially prone to flooding. Many homes were under water after hours of heavy rains.



Please pray for our community as they are predicting a storm of equal intensity to pass through in the next 48 hours. Homes have been ruined and we are just starting to dry out- pray that the rain holds off allowing the community to pick up again before it is hit again.









Power lines are down throughout the city. The road to Manuel Antonio beach is completely blocked by fallen trees and the whole mountain is without electricity.









Another fallen light post.









Fallen signs.





At the school, we are thankful that all we had was minimal flooding (even though water rose to about a foot outside of our doors!). We are in one of the few neighborhoods that still has power.



Below, you can see how high the water was in our school room (remember, we are in a new building and we still had this much water! imagine the homes that are older and have less protection)









Below, almost clean- just getting the last layer of water out of the classroom.







Below our library and reading corner out in the sun to dry. Disappointed that we may have lost quite a few books, but realize that this is minimal loss compared to many families and individuals in our community.







Thank you to my Costa Rican family and community here who has called and stopped by, concerned and checking in on me. We hope that we will be back in classes tomorrow if there is not another storm. Many of our students were without electricity and unable to leave their homes due to road blockages. Pray that everything gets cleared up safely and that no one was hurt!

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Thank you Spruce Pine, NC Rotary!

Thank you Sprice Pine, NC Rotary for your donations that went towards buying dictionaries for our classroom! The 2nd graders are working on alphabetizing and learning about all the uses for a dictionary. (They love the pictures :) ) And a few of our kids have read the book FRINDLE... and are getting crazy ideas... calling Aleasha Mrs. Granger (the teacher in the book who is renown for her love of the dictionary and making her kids study vocabulary)





The Spruce Pine Rotary also donated maps, dictionaries and other classroom resources to the small school in Cerros! Below a group of Cerros students, some of our students, and the teacher in Cerros.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Reading Pairs

Every day we have a little down time after recess to sit and read. This is usually when the teacher reads aloud to the class. However, once in a while, the kids get together and read in pairs. They love it! It is one of those times when I am SO thankful to have a multi-age classroom! It is such a blessing to see the kids engaging in literature with their peers and with a joy for reading! They come in from recess now and ask "Can we read en parejas hoy?" (In pairs today!?!) THANK YOU again to the Spruce Pine Rotary Club for donating new books to our school library!







THANK you Marge!

Marge came to Costa Rica for the first time with a work team in January, and came back this March to help out in the classroom! And we put her to work! Along with teaching the kids a little bit about French culture, she was a HUGE help in organizing all of our curriculum and paperwork that has been accumulating over the past few months! She spent hours setting up folders and filing papers! Not a fun job, but was a big blessing to me and our teachers!
Marge is also known for carrying around her camera and getting great shots of nature and the kids! Check out some of her photos below- isn't this flower a rare find?! And she got some beautiful shots of the kids!

Thanks again Marge for sharing your time and your heart with us at the school! We are so thankful for all that you have done!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Friday Culture Class

Every Friday, we take a few minutes out of the morning to talk about a different country. We locate it on the map, discuss the elements of culture (food, language, typical dress, etc), and pray for the people who live there.


We have been excited to have "experts" from each of the countries, come in and share a little bit about the specific cultures.

Misoko, Kai's mom, is from Japan, and was able to teach us a little about the cultural differences between rural and urban cities in Japan.


Kai (which means sea in Japanese)
is already bilingual in Japanese and Spanish,
and English will be his third language!


Jody, from Belgium, shared her knowledge of four languages, and the fact the french fries actually originated in Belgium.



(above, Nathan with his colored Belgium flag)

Marge, a former French professor, share details about French cuisine and important architecture structures found in French.





Our kids have loved learning about the places around the world (and practicing words in other languages)! An important asset for those who live in Quepos- a city that attracts people from all over the world!


Alisson asked me the other day when we were going to start learning Japanese. We love that they want to learn languages!


This is just one of the small things we try to incorporate into our education, to help foster a love for different cultures, equipping our students to show Christ's love not only to people who live, look, and speak like them, but with people from all different ethnic backgrounds and geographic locations!



"So that the WORLD may know" Jesus!

Monday, May 17, 2010

A crab habitat

Kai (4 years old) loves animals and on a weekly basis brings whatever he caught into school to show the other students. Some days it is a small spider, other days a baby chick. Today, it was a baby crab that he caught over the weekend.
Kai and Bradley
In science, Bradley is learning about habitats. He has learned that a habitat includes all the elements an organizism needs to survive. So Bradley and Kai decided to build a habitat for the crab. They added water, plans, and even gave the crab some pieces of bread.

Can you find the crab?! This is the same species that was found running around our playground early last week!

Friday, May 14, 2010

Oceans Unlimited Mangrove Visit

Lesson about Mangroves!



We were honored to have some Dive Masters in Training from Oceans Unlimited come and teach us a little bit about Mangroves and why they are important. Mangroves are trees that grow in the intercoastline and can survive in the salt water. They have two types of roots- one that stabalizes them and another that reaches up above ground for air.
Studies say that 1/3 of the worlds mangroves have been destroyed...
Our students learned that mangroves are important because:
--They help sustain the land from errosion into the ocean
--They are a habitat for many birds, fish, and reptiles
(they grow where the tide comes in, and become a safe place for fish to lay eggs)
So our students spent some time making posters, encouraging people in this community to protect the mangroves in our area! Because Quepos is below sea level, we are located in what once was mangroves, and have mangroves all around us!
DMT Emma prepared a wonderful presentation on Mangroves!


Looking at pictures of different types of Mangroves found in Costa Rica

Ryan, Bradley and Valeria working on their poster.


"Please protect... "
Having fun making posters!



The whole group! Proud of their posters!