Vacation School -- Escuela de vacaciones

The school year in Guatemala runs from January to October. During their time off from school, it is common for older kids to help their households out with expenses by getting a job during break. To help parents in keeping their younger children occupied while they are out of school, Paso a Paso holds Vacation School during November. From 8:30am to 1:00pm everyday the kids come and participate in a variety of entertaining activities.

In total, we had 57 children registered for vacation school. Everyday we began the day with a bible story and singing a few songs with motions.

 

From there, the kids split into three groups, headed by Evita, Sonia, and Fatima (our part-time teacher for the month that previously did her student-teaching at Paso a Paso to finish up her studies. She returned during November to help out with vacation school). Then we had a rotation of 3 stations: (1) computer classes, (2) some sort of craft, coloring page, or game, and (3) preparing for the singing competition at the end of the month. I was in charge of the computer rotation for the groups.

Check out photos from the event by clicking here.

In the middle of these stations, we had a snack time all together. After all the stations, we all came back together to either work on Christmas crafts/decorations or singing Christmas songs (and doing motions) to prepare for the ending ceremony.

Cooking Classes

One special day we had cooking classes with the kids. When the kids arrived that morning they all came with a cutting board, a knife, a bowl, and a fork in hand. After three shortened rotations, we spent the afternoon with our cooking instructor Any.

Today's menu included chef's salad with a homemade dressing!!

Check out photos from the event by clicking here.

Big kids and little kids alike were all working side by side to make the salad--a lesson for the older kids on both patience and skills for helping others. A chef's salad was chosen for the menu because it gave Any a multitude of preparation techniques to teach the kids (and it didn't involve using fire when working with 50-ish kids ranging from 5-years-old to teenage years).  From the basics of (1) how best to clean and disinfect lettuce (a hard veggies to get really really clean) to (2) peeling, scooping, and pickling a long list of veggies to (3) different knife skills--from slicing to dicing to finely chopping herbs--to (4) presentation skills to make a dish look scrumptious.

The kids were really excited walking in the door that day with their kitchen utensils in hand, anticipating the fun to come. And they left that day with their stomachs full of a salad they had made with their own hands, working with their friends--also knowing a little more about food safety and prep.

This post also appeared on GuidedSteps.org