The new year of 2014 started off well, with fresh vision and fresh inspiration, and never a dull moment!  We have had some exciting training sessions, refreshing the vision of the teachers and staff to continue their efforts to help make a difference in the lives of the children.  We also have had a re-envisioning parent-teacher meeting to help inspire the parents to continue the journey of training and educating their children for the future and to instill in them the importance of this, to bring them a new and bright future.

Although January is the first month of a brand new year, the children at Edelweiss School are starting the eighth month of their 11 month school year. Children are back after an enjoyable and well deserved winter vacation.

Attendance and Nutrition

Total Number of Students Enrolled: 126

Total number of meals served this month: 3,762

No. of school days: 22
No. of students enrolled (Day): 105
Average attendance (Day): 85
Attendance in % (Day): 80.9%
Number of Students Enrolled (ASP): 18
Total breakfasts served: 1876
Total lunches served: 1665
Total meals served at ASP
(After School Program): 221
Total number meals served since opening at Edelweiss: 81,492
Total # of meals served at ABC-BB Schools: 125,980 meals

School re-opened on the 2nd of January and its curriculum is in full swing. There is so much to do in this academic year and just another three more months till the K5 kids move on to higher grades at other schools. K4 students will continue with us for one more year in K5.

The After School Program (ASP) has also been really useful in terms of a good revision and helping all the graduates who are now in higher grades, to study and perform well in their respective schools. We currently have 18 graduated students enrolled in the After School Program.

To assess the need for such an After School Program a meeting was held between Mothers of the Graduated Students and various Building Blocks Teachers,  Building Blocks Founder James Ambat and AlphaBet Club Founder Troy Swanson. At this meeting Mothers shared insight into areas in which they believed their children would benefit from coming back to school. They also shared many difficulties that the children experienced in other schools and in maintaining level of English.

LEARNING FOCUS:

The K4 children are learning music with the BrillKids Little Musician (how does this teach music), they are taught hygiene and cleanliness and washing of hands in 7 steps.

They learned about their teacher and how to respect rules in school. They have done activities in Fun with Math and also do their reading with the help of BrillKids Little Reader.

In Viva Science, the children learned about Ocean, sea animals and outdoor activities.

The older children in K5 have moved on to learning to blend words in Jolly Phonics, creepy crawlies and animal voices. A monthly test was conducted for the K5 children in all their subjects – Math, Science, Social science, Jolly phonics and Kannada. This helps the teacher understand which child may need a little extra attention.

A lot of fun activities were planned for this month’s curriculum.

NUTRITION:

This month Edelweiss gave out 1876 nutritious breakfasts and 1665 lunches and 221 snacks for the ASP children, with a total of 3762 nutritious meals served in January.

The total number of meals served at ABC – BB schools in January is 7,790.

CELEBRATION AT EDELWEISS:

And the Christmas spirit continues….

All the children were given Christmas gifts that they had asked for! The children were asked what would they like to have as their Christmas gift and their wishes passed on to our friends from TOIT (a pub and brewery in Bangalore) who sponsored the gifts this year. They came to Edelweiss School to personally give each of the children their gifts. The children were so excited to receive their presents and thanked them heartily!

Special Thanks to the staff that supports Edelweiss at our Implementation Partner, Building Blocks, and also to our Project Funding Partner, Alternatives 4 Children.