Monday

It was a great first day in the schools.

In Otoxha Shannon and Jill presented lessons on the human body. They made edible heart diagrams, Q-tip skeletons, and listened to their heartbeats with stethoscopes.
Phil and Shilah had great fun making air balloon rockets.

The first spring box slab and first row of blocks are in place on one of the spring boxes. About 50 men from Dolores showed up to help with the project, so Vernon and Mike did a lot of "supervising."
Don and Rose read the children a book with letters children have written to Pope Frances. The children then made Pope Frances puppets. Another group made Miraculous Medals, which a few students promptly turned into Miraculous Frisbees! Cynthia and Angie did music activities and lots of active games with the students. It's a huge school, by Belize standards (169 kids), so fitting in all the activities is a challenge.

In Blue Creek Derlene and Shelly worked on Language activities. The preschoolers and Infant I/II classes loved using bingo dabbers to highlight letters. The older kids did great writing projects. Colleen and Anita had the STEM lessons. Stacking plastic apples, building shelters and constructing solar robots. The best part of the day in Blue Creek is enjoying lunch sitting on a rock with your feet in the cool clear water.

Crazy day in Corazon Creek. A brand new teacher was starting, and we found out the day before that the students had only a half day of school, so Ann, Kristen and Michelle had to squeeze the art lessons into the morning. They made butterflies and sock puppets. Anne and Ellen presented the women's health talks in the afternoon, while face painting was going on outside the community center.

Quite of the day: We stopped to gas up the van and a few of us ran into the store to pick up sodas and snacks. As we were paying with U.S. money, Derlene said, "I have Belize money, can you take that?"