Welcome to our first newsletter about the achievements and daily life at the Sacuanjoche Waldorf Kindergarten in Granada Nicaragua.
The kindergarten has now been open for more than five months, and much has been achieved thanks to deeply engaged people; parents, teachers and friends of the school. We have also received many appreciated physical and financial donations. We are very grateful for all the help and support that we have received to allow us to carry through this project.
We are now a group of 12 children with hopefully more children to begin soon. We possess an even mixture of boys to girls, older children to young ones and Nicaraguans to foreign children so that the team of children works well together, helping each other through their development. After our first long vacation for Christmas, the children slipped back into the rhythm with much joy and creativity. Their voices were rhythmic with familiar songs from the previous year and their hands were busy creating new paintings, clay statues, new baking recipes and our lunch times were filled with laughter and stories. They still sing songs from the Lantern party we celebrated in November, as well as from the Christmas play in December. The sewing group was busy preparing the costumes, for shepards and angels and has now taken up the challenge of making dolls.
In this new year we are commencing the project of planting a fully functional organic garden that will be flourishing by the rainy season. All the children know the necessities for growing plants, such as sun, soil, water and love. They have enjoyed digging in the dirt and plucking fresh herbs for our soups and sauces. Soon we hope to take the children on their first excursion to a farm in the nearby town of Guanacaste, a bit up the side of the volcano Mombacho. Here they will be able to see different animals and species of plants and trees.
We also welcome a new teacher, Angelica Mohica, who is a local Nicaraguan Spanish and Elementary school teacher, with interest in Waldorf pedagogy. She started the New year at an intensive Waldorf training course in Costa Rica. The children enjoy her presence as much as we do and we appreciate her becoming a part of this new school year. We are looking forward to witnessing new transformations within the school, the students and ourselves within this new year.
Since the kindergarten opened its doors in September of last year, we have been under an ongoing development. Thanks to the many positive forces and experienced hands of the generous parents who have been very involved and done a tremendously good job during our monthly work weekends. On these weekends the teachers, parents, and students join together to create new toys, dolls, perform simple maintenance or just clean, to preserve the beauty of our new school. These special days possess a sense of family and accomplishment that is priceless.
On behalf of the Board of Directors and our staff, we would like to thank you for your time reading our first newletter. Please contact us anytime through email at
sacuanjochekindergarten@yahoo.com. We love making new friends and receiving advise and opininions! You will see also on our website,
http://www.waldorfgranada.com/ all the information about our school. We have explained there about how we are trying to offer this special education to local children and train local teachers with the generous donations of our supporters.
Saludos,
Board of Directors
Teachers - Lisa Vilstrup and Tai Bingham
Remember to review our website for updates and to make donations:
http://www.waldorfgranada.com/You can also contact us at:
sacuanjochekindergarten@yahoo.com
