projecting

This is going to be a post full o' pictures, mostly of all the lessons and projects we've been doing in these parts. They're not exactly in the order I'd like, as I'm having some trouble getting everything to load properly (and the formatting is a pain in the neck), but whaddaya gonna do? Personally, I'm just going to get over it and get on with it. So here goes.

Last week, we worked on healthy food choices. The kids colored the letters for a big poster, and I made different foods out of paper. Then the children had to decide whether each food item was a "Good Choice" (happy face) or belonged to the "Foods to Avoid" category (sad face). Foods in the latter group got a big red "X" placed over them. However, I did try to make clear that ice cream and chips are OK sometimes, just not every day. This was partly because it's true, but also because I treated them to ice cream after our library visit a couple weeks before, and I didn't want them thinking, "If I'm not supposed to eat it, why on earth did she buy it for me?"

As part of our healthy foods theme, we also made fruit bowls. Personally, I thought the kids did a brilliant job.

They first colored paper "bowls," which were then glued like big pockets onto white paper. I made fruit shapes (apples, oranges, and bananas) which could be placed inside, and I had the kids cut out carrot shapes. I would've let them cut out all the fruit, but then the craft would've taken two days instead of two hours. So. Learning how to handle scissors is a process, and for our class, it seems to be a fairly new process :)




At one point, I know I mentioned the flower projects and growth chart we made after our trip to Kirstenbosch. And now you finally get to see what I was talking about. Below, our colorful class height measurements.

Each flower turned out so differently! Some really got the hang of it, adding sunshine, grass, and insects:

Others chose to forgo the center of the flower in favor of a root ball (forgive my lack of technical terms there):

And some just did their own thing entirely:

All in all, two very successful projects!

I have more projects, as well as some pictures of my gorgeous children (yes, that's right, at this point, there's no doubt about it: they are my kids). I'm going to try and post all that as soon as I have a chance. Hopefully, that'll be in the very near future, but hey, this is Africa. So we'll see what happens :)