Lets Be Ready

We’re very content and satisfied to be wrapping up yet another successful month and have seen some great results from our little ones. Our children have made many advancements and seeing as how we’re at the end of the school year, we’ll now see the final results of all of our teaching thus far.

In the month of July our teachers participated in the second half of our bi-annual training which lasted a week. We were able to learn a lot of different techniques, strategies and new ideas to utilize in the classroom. We were shown different activities pertaining to fine motor skills, something that is very important to the development of age group of kids that we work with. We also learned about how to better manage children with behavioral issues and how to deal with truly difficult cases more effectively.

The highlight of the training however, was how to work with recycled materials. Our teachers experimented with many different ideas on how to use recycled materials in the classroom to teach different subjects. The objective was to raise awareness regarding classroom materials and how we can oftentimes use many items more than once before throwing them way.

Looking at the different pictures, you can see how in the school of Los Izotes in Santo Domingo Xenacoj, our teacher, Lidia Bacajol, is putting the different ideas that we learned in the training into action. If you pay close attention to the pictures, you might notice the different materials that Lidia is using and what their different uses are.

As you can see we’ve been busy with many new activities to help ensure that both teaching and learning can be as fun and effective as possible.

Links:

• http://letsbeready.org/

......without developing a strong mothers group and a sustainable nutrition component that impacts the diet in the homes and provides access to a supplement that assures the children are getting sufficient micronutrients, vitamins and protein, even if the families are not yet able buy or cultivate the nutritious food they need. We will be able to measure the impact on reducing stunting, the most obvious sighn of malnutrition.

We will demonstrate for all of Guatemala that the combination early stimulation, academic preparation and elimination of malnutrition in the early years of life will ensure the success of children in primary school as well as thriving in their lives……and is sustainable and replicable in all rural areas of the country, even those without graduated teachers. And we will have the data to prove it.

Our mothers groups are the key to success. We are providing training to them about hygiene, signs of chronic malnutrition, a rainbow of colors in their diets, starting home and school gardens, and showing them the improvements that are occurring in their children through pictures, weight and height gains, and reduction in bouts of sickness over time. We are also teaching early childhood stimulation techniques and giving materials to use at home including books and recycled items to aid in learning numbers, letters and words.

The mothers are providing a nutritious snack each day to the children in the classroom and are being encouraged to do the same for the younger children at home. They also contribute one third of the cost of providing the nutritional supplement to children in the family. Each year they will contribute a greater share of the cost.

A new collaborator this year, Mathile Institute, is providing consulting service and the supplement, branded Chispuditios, to all of our school children. It is intended only for children 6 months to 6 years old. We are looking for other collaborators to subsidize the supplement for the younger children at home.

Can you help?

June 27, 2017

Hi, Marshon, how are you?

I hope you are well…

I want to start by writing about 2 important activities that occurred last month, that I did not mention in the in the last report, because I thought it was necessary for you to know about the outstanding progress of each of our children.

The first is that a group of Aula Magica teachers arrived at our school on May 22. We demonstrated for them how we work in Pequeños Pero Listos. We showed them our materials and how we work in small groups All the teachers who visited us were very happy for the welcome that we gave them and were eager to put into practice the ideas that we shared, The children had a lot of fun well.

The second had to do with the new nutrition project. This year we included a new atol, which has many of the nutrients and vitamins they need at this preschool age and earlier. The atol is called Chispuditos, is very nutritious and is proven to work. What we want to achieve with this new innovation is for our children to have better nutrition so they can be more awake to learn and free from malnutrition. We collected data about their health (size, weight, diseases) and diet, so they can see how they are now without taking the atol, and then be able to see the changes after they took it. I will send you a report at the end of the year on this, so that you see the benefits obtained with Chispuditos.

We are working hard with learning numbers. This was our general theme during this month. We did significant activities and worksheets. So far they have learned the numbers 1-10, stroke and quantity well. Some are finding it hard to learn the numbers, but we do activities with moms on numbers so the children can also go over and work from home. It has worked very well for us;. For example; we have a child named Anderson .He had very difficult time understanding amounts and strokes, but with this material at home his progress has been very noticeable. He now is successful in the sequence, the stroke and quantity.

The class is working on fine motor skills, using the plasticine to mold and form their name, figures, shapes. We are learning to use scissors too, We make simple worksheets to use the scissors. The boys who were with us last year were very easy, however the new ones took more time, but they can now use and cut, Of course I have been very careful with them because they can be mischevous.

Loaning of books to the parents has been very useful for the children to stimulate their creativity, imagination and reading. To make learning more meaningful we will begin to teach the vowels and and some consonants with the older students, to continue to stimulate pre-reading and pre-writing.

If you have any suggestions on what more activities we can do regarding numbers, welcome ...

Thank you, thank you very much for your all your support and God Bless you!

I'll write you next month, see you soon ...

Margarita

Greetings to all, I hope you are very well ...

It is a pleasure to write again and tell you our joys and achievements this month, in this case the conversations of what is happening at the San Rafael "El Arado" school in Sumpango. Parents are very happy that their children are studying preschool, since some years there was no preschooler in this community; Teachers Claudia and Betzabé have been working hard these last few years, because the children study in better conditions and much support from their parents.

During this month the children have many activities to do, they are learning the numbers, the vowels, the geometric figures, the colors, they already identify what their name is and they can write it, they have done fine motor exercises and exercises. They are also working with books to continue the stimulation to reading, and they learned a solo reading by observing the images, without having to read. This is a very big and surprising advance for them, because they feel very proud to be able to read without the help of their teacher.

In Guatemala on March 8, International Women's Day is celebrated, a very important day for all Guatemalan women. The teachers of this community planned a very fun day for the mothers, so they would enjoy that day and with the objective of giving them an idea of how important and valuable they are; A picture was done and they played with their children through dynamics that the teachers taught to have fun.

The effort of the teachers to look for support has been rewarded! Because of their initiative, the children have their Physical Education uniform, which is of great benefit to this community and is also possible thanks to the Rotarians of South Guatemala, who made this donation. This Association aims to help Guatemalan education and in this way help communities in which it is very difficult to have uniforms. Clothing, pants, jackets and tennis shoes for this class, children were very excited and grateful for this amazing gift, as many of them love to exercise.

Thanks to donations like these and the support obtained, children can better enjoy this stage of their life, in preschool; They can be the same, have fun and most importantly learn by playing ...

We thank all people at heart for all the support they give us, and if they want to do so do it and change the future of our Guatemalan children.

"The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual." Or as the saying goes: The Union makes the Force.

 Precisely that is what we will talk about, support, unity, cooperation and teamwork. The things we did not even imagine we would do.

 We are very happy to have started the school year very well, all the teachers are very enthusiastic about the group of children they have this year, the progress they have had and everything that each group is ready to do: To reach the most distant communities and where there is no preschool.

 During the time this year has taken place, there have been some transfers of schools, in new communities, more distant and rural. An example of this is the new school in the community of CHURRAMOS in San Martín Jilotepeque, which has had great acceptance in this area, the parents are very happy and willing to collaborate with the teacher.

There is certainly much support, but it has not been possible without the help provided by our sponsors; And the fact that they visit our schools is a new adventure and experience for them. As happened to John who is the sponsor of this new school, he was in Guatemala last month, to see what work is being done in this community. He was very excited, admired the community, and he was very moved by the children; The children were also very happy and a bit intimidated, as they are not accustomed to foreign visitors.

 We also had the visit of a volunteer Kathy; She was very happy comparing with the children, and not only with our children but also with the children of Primary. She comments:

“On my annual trip to Guatemala this January, I accompanied Sara, the Project Director for Lets Be Ready, to deliver supplies she had purchased in Antique along with the wooden puzzles, blocks, preschool books in Spanish, and stickers I brought to donate. We traveled to two schools near Patzicia, a commercial agricultural area of Guatemala, as well as to the home of one of the teachers where three more teachers would pick up supplies on their way to their even more rural preschools.

 The two classrooms we visited are next door to homes of two of the children, in keeping with the philosophy that the community needs to provide the space for the preschools, keeping financial donations for just teachers and minimal supplies. The day was cold. Sara explained that it is always cold there due to the altitude. In both classes children were missing due to illness; colds were going around everywhere.

 This was my 9th trip to Guatemala and each year I bring a suitcase or two full of educational toys and books for the preschools. I love garage sales and thrift stores and it gives me a reason to shop. While visiting in town I asked a 2nd grade teacher at one of the three local elementary schools if she could tell which children had been to the LetsBeReady preschool. She gave a resounding yes, but also commented that she wished the public schools had the materials that our preschools have. I love watching the children play with the well stocked preschools. But I am aware that more sponsors are needed to maintain the 23 teachers. It only takes $2000 a year to sponsor a preschool of 15 to 20 children. Or for two people to each give $1000; or four to give $500 each.

 Donations of goods and money are critically needed to continue giving children the opportunity to succeed in school and overcome the crushing poverty especially dominant in rural Guatemala. Any help is welcome.

A fan of Lets Be Ready”

And the truth is this, we need a lot of your support, Guatemala can have a universal preschool, quality and very effective. Support us! Make your donation