Serving and Teaching in Venezuela: International Day and Venezuela Day

Fourth and Fifth Grade

After our long Carnival break, we started back with school on March 5. Praise God that we have been able to have school every day since then (I'm actually writing this on March 22)! March 6 and 7 were already planned special days at our school: International Day and Venezuela Day. Since our school is an international school in Venezuela, we believe it is important for kids to learn and celebrate these things. Besides teaching them in class from this perspective, we also have these two days (which used to be a week I'm told) to emphasize it by learning as a whole school.

For International Day, the elementary students took a flight and visited different countries (led by every teacher). At each country, they learned a little bit about it and did an activity. Then they flew off to another country. Some kids (even in my grades) were really into pretending that they were actually flying to these different countries. We started off the day by having them board a plane as we pretended to be stewardesses.

I was the tour guide in Australia (thanks for the idea mom!). I enjoyed having the chance to teach each grade for a little while. First we learned about the animals in Australia and some new words. The older grades went on a "bus tour" via slideshow as we drove to the Outback. In the Outback, we learned about aboriginal dot paintings and made some of the animals we learned about. All of the students seemed to have a great time. All of the pictures are from my Australia station because that's where I stayed all day.

First Grade

Second Grade

Third Grade

The students also flew to England, China, Egypt, and Japan before landing in Venezuela. In England, they had tea and learned their manners. Some of my girls said learning their manners was the favorite part of their day. In Egypt, they wrote their name in hieroglyphics and played African games. In China, they read a story. In Japan, they had to take off their shoes to enter the room and learned how to write their names in Japanese. Then, we ended the day by flying back to Venezuela and writing postcards to tell their friends or family where they went that day.

Third Grade

Preschool and Kindergarten

Flying Home

March 7 was Venezuela Day. The students were divided into groups with someone from every grade level in the school. I walked around with one group most of the day. We had different stations where we learned games like trompo, how to dance salsa and merengue, and were quizzed on our knowledge of Venezuela. Then, we had to come up with a dance that the students were going to perform in front of the school in the afternoon. In the afternoon, we also decorated each door in the school with one state from Venezuela. My group decorated my door with the state Miranda, which is the only one with snow topped mountains. I learned just as much on Venezuela Day as my kids did!