Time flies… Hi, I’m Laura and I’ve been helping out at the Casa Búho project for three weeks now. The motto: “We love to read” — you can really tell the kids mean it. The sparkle in their eyes when they enter the Casa Búho library, or when Valeria’s car pulls up in front of the schoolyard, shows the children’s love for the project. I already feel very comfortable here and I’m really looking forward to being part of all this for the coming weeks.
Laura with a group of students from the Puerto Machalilla school.
Laura with Yesli from the ‘Peque Búhxs’ group.
The plan to give access to the “Chiquiturris” (as Valeria lovingly calls all her little Búhos) is truly a great thing and is obviously well received. The free reading at the beginning, the “Story Time,” and the subsequent “Creativity Time” are all enjoyed to the fullest. It is not uncommon for small tears to flow when the children have to leave at the end.
Our week began with the youngest ones, who jumped right into “Story Time” and imitated the facial expressions from the book “Let’s Make Faces” with their moms. Then, during the “Sensory Time” to stimulate the senses, they dipped cotton pads in water, sprinkled them with paint, and then pounded on them with their hands or other tools. The result was a beautiful colorful picture.
Some of the materials for Tuesday’s session.
‘Sensory Time’ with our group of moms and baby mini búhxs.
The older kids in the afternoon made beautiful dreamcatchers with wood, thread, beads, and feathers… while music played in the background, everyone let their creativity run free and worked very focused.
Laura explains to the ‘My Reading Afternoon’ program group how to create a dreamcatcher.
On Wednesday and Thursday, the Chiquiturris also worked with the content of the books by acting out words or drawing words from the book “Mario Imaginario,” illustrated by Oliver Jeffers, and having to guess them.
On Friday, a large cardboard box was recycled and turned into a decorative banner titled “We Love to Read” for all the búhos to decorate and write their names on.
There was lots of reading and crafting at the schools this week. A penguin based on a figure 8, a hand in 3D optics, and inspired by the book “A Perfect Day,” the children from San Isidro created an artwork made of animals from dried leaves. This was so well received and looked so beautiful that the Peque Búhos also had the pleasure of doing this on Friday.
On Thursday morning something special happened. After a class from the Puerto Machalilla school had visited Casa Búho the previous week, 32 students from another class at this school were able to explore Casa Búho. After the story of “Two Mice, a Rat, and a Cheese” by Colombian author Claudia Rueda, they made pompoms with a fork and created their own mouse. The result was an entire extended family of mice. Then they were allowed to explore the library and still had time to browse through the books.
Laura explains to the group of students from the Puerto Machalilla school what the workshop’s creative activity is about.
Finally, on Saturday we continued reading with the really big kids from literature, reading “Holes” by Louis Sachar, and we analyzed what was happening. It’s not an easy read, but the kids are great and chapter after chapter followed, as everyone was completely captivated by the story. I always use this time to learn by listening and I notice that I understand much more than I did 2 weeks ago. As the grand finale of the week, on Saturday evening we all rode through the village together on the Gusanita, the colorful little train shaped like a worm with lots of lights and sounds.
Brief summary: I think it’s great that the project is so varied — children of different ages, different group sizes, work at “Casa Búho” and at the schools — but they all share the same passion: the love of books.
To see more images from our work week, visit our social media. Instagram: @CasaBuho_ec / Facebook: @CasaBuho.org