Lets Be Ready

"The greatest satisfaction a teacher can have is that the teaching you gave your pupil has had an effect on him"

It's amazingly amazing, how far we have come so fast at the end of the school year. I am very happy for the opportunity I had this year to learn from the children, to share, to teach, to play and to love them.

I want to start by describing the activity that we carried out on October 1, the date on which Children's Day is celebrated here in Guatemala. That day we played different games to have fun and ate cake, which was kindly donated by a mother for all children. In short that day we had a great time.

In this month we finished learning about the Human Body topics, such as its parts, the care we must have for our body, health and hygiene, and we learned the most important parts of our Digestive System. The children finished a booklet of strokes, and activities with their name where some learned to write their first names and others their full name, description and strokes of numbers and letters.

In the week of 10-14 October, we conducted the evaluations of the third and final block; The topics we evaluated were: Fruits and Vegetables, Professions and trades, the 5 senses, parts of the human body, digestive system, parts of a plant, stroke and sequence numbers 1-10, writing his name , The patriotic symbols and finally how to follow the traces of figures. I was very proud to see that the results of the evaluations were very satisfying and meaningful for the children; As most reached a 90% understanding of all these issues.

On October 17, the results of the evaluation, the development and the progress of the children were delivered to the parents, we also agreed on the last details of the closure.

The Closing was October 18, which was very emotional and inspiring. We started by calling the children one by one and applauding the culmination of their studies, then we saw a video with the photos that captured the best moments during the year; We gave them a diploma as a certification for having studied this year with the program. Moms prepared food for the children and their families, in order to coexist and share all together. The children presented a dance called El Chango Marango. When they finished, they did some dynamics in which the children and some parents participated. It was fun to watch the parents participate in the games, everyone had a good time; The children broke piñata and ate cake.

It was a day filled with many emotions because the farewells are not very pleasant, most of the parents thanked us for the patience, dedication, effort, commitment, creativity and love with which we care for their children. It was a very special and fun afternoon, both for the children and for us. Finally we encourage parents to continue to support their children in the future as they did this year, in fact I was surprised by all the effort and dedication they showed on their children.

It was a group that gave us "many surprises" and very dynamic, but I would not change it for anything. And I can only end by writing that it was a pleasure to have been part of the life of these 24 creatures, during the year; Thank you!!! Thank you Marshon for all the unconditional support and advice you gave us during this year; And I also appreciate the support and advice given me by my companion Anaelise with whom I learned much more about the Art of being a Master.

Thank you very much for everything

Guatemala, the heart of Central America

"Guatemala celebrates Independence Day"

Hello everyone, it is a pleasure to write you again and tell our adventures and projects so far ...

In our country Guatemala, the month of September is considered the patriotic month, and a celebration was held on 15 September 1to comemorate 195 years of independence, so all of our teachers performed various activities with their children, to encourage civic and cultural values.

The central themes for this month were: the National Symbols, a brief history the anthem of the country, and the importance of the culture from which we come ... We used an Audio of Magical Classroom to make teaching more meaningful and so that children would learn in a simple and concise manner.

Each center Small But Ready classroom organized with the community to have a parade or walk as a sign of celebration of independence. Most of our children participated and made posters with the National Symbols and congratulations on 195 years of independence fulfilled.

This is an example of how we teach the children basic preschool skills through activities.

The following letter was sent to from a teacher to her sponsors who has supported several teachers for five years. She gets updates like this one through out the school year.

AUGUST 2016
Hello again, Marshon ...

It's good to write again and tell about our adventures and advances this month ...

We have been studying the theme of transportion and to achieve more effective learning. We visited the Naval Pacific Command of our country where children received an explanation of what they do there and some important facts about the boats. The children were able to see the inside of the boat and all the equipment it contains. It was a fun trip because at the end of our visit. We went to the beach, so that children could know" The Mar". The children were amazed and liked it so much they no longer wanted to go home.

This month we also studied plants and how to care for them. We listened to the Magic Classroom audios to learn more information. Also each child drew a plant with parts and painted them in their favorite colors. The students learned about various fruits and vegetables and the the differences between them. To finish the month, we studied the public and professional occupations that encouraged children to tell us what they want to do when they grow up. Many are quite sure what they want to be. Each child drew a picture of what they want to be on very large colored paper and decorated it, a portrait of them for the future.

We continue to strengthen our knowledge of numbers, letters, shapes and colors in every theme we study. Taking ideas that we learned in the teacher training we had in July, we are using the bottle caps or covers from carbonated water, to perform various activities such as to form figures, sequence numbers, patterns, and colors.

By the way, we are also working with each of these themes in the centers, especially in blocks, home & drama in conjunction with the imagination game, numbers and letters; and finally with the corner library, where lately many of our children love to take a book and read it alone. The students interpret images from the books, and they are expanding their vocabulary while we are reinforcing the theme of animals.

Finally, we work a lot with gross motor skills in PE class and outdoor games.

There are many things we have done, but better it is better if I show the pictures. I will write again next month, which will also have many new and varied activities ...

See you soon!!!

Margarita

It’s incredible that we’re somehow already in the fifth month of the year! Here in Guatemala, May is known as the Month of Mothers and as such a lot of importance is placed on the celebration of Mother’s Day in schools everywhere. This year we celebrated this special day in all of our classrooms on May 10^th, where each teacher had students participate in different arts and crafts and other fun activities such as dances, skits and other games.

The objective of this day is to make sure that all the mothers have fun, and feel happy and proud of their children. While the kids had a great time amidst all the fun and games, they also were hard at work developing their abilities. During the arts and crafts portion of the day the children were honing his/her fine motor skills and putting their creativity abilities to work. During their dance presentation, the children showed off their balance, coordination and an ability to follow instructions and in the group skits they demonstrated an ability to get into their respective roles and act out different kinds of stories. All together it was an incredible day throughout the program!

We also were lucky enough to have a special visitor and good friend to the program drop in this month. Barbara Conboy is a university professor and speech therapist at the University of Redlands and has been bringing students down to Guatemala to observe Let’s Be Ready classrooms and students for the past few years.

This year Barabara brought down a good sized group of students whom were able to visit Cindy and Glorias’ classrooms in the community of Santo Domingo Xenacoj. They started the day off with Cindy’s class where they got to help them read the story of El Tico Tango before helping them reflect on the story and making crafts centered on the animal characters from the book. In the afternoon they went on to visit with Gloria’s group where they were met with the same level of enthusiasm from the kids as earlier in the day. Both classes loved being able show off for their special guests!

Overall, we’re more than pleased with our students’ progress thus far and are continually blown away by just how capable and intelligent they are.

As always, thank you to everyone that helps support Let’s Be Ready. We’re trying our hardest to be the best teachers possible and work together to improve the education of rural children in Guatemala.

The new school year is underway with 22 teachers participating with over 250 kids being prepared for success in primary school

The school year began with a week long training session for 22 teachers. We distributed bluetooth speakers and tablets loaded with apps that the teachers are using to augment their curriculum. All of the teachers sent out emails to their sponsors telling about thier students and plans for the year.

We were fortunate to have on site evaluation from a Global Giving representative in April. The following is feedback from the visit:

Note from the In-the-Field Traveler
Fred, Nancy, and Sara were all incredible hosts and went out of their way to help me get to know Pequenos Pero Listos. I really enjoyed visiting schools around Xenacoj with Sara, and I was so impressed by all they have done to help prepare kids for long term academic success!

Recommendation for how to better use GlobalGiving
As we discussed, Let's Be Ready has some great story content (and of course visual content) that can be used in Project Reports, and they might consider altering slightly the titles of project pages to use "active" language reinforce donor impact. I noticed that they have already made it up to Superstar status! You guys rock!

Feedback on your programs
I hope that as Let's Be Ready continues to grow they can afford to take on more staff and dedicate more time to fundraising and organizational development. I would love to see them be able to provide these kinds of programs all around Guatemala!

Quote from the In-the-Field Traveler
Let's Be Ready (Pequenos Pero Listos) is truly setting the foundation for academic success in rural Guatemala. Their programs lay the groundwork for children to continue attending school while employing and empowering local teachers.

Photos from Daillen Culver's visit to Lets Be Ready are attached