No more tantrums to throw, no more crying to say good bye to their parents – Just one month into the school, what a change in the 3 and 4 year olds for being first time away from their parents!

As we leap forward into the next month we see children hopping and running into the school every morning.  Things have calmed and settled down with the new children.  Focus is back into learning for all K3, K4 and K5 kids.  After School Program (ASP) enrollment has gone up by 85% from the last month.  A total of 37 students from 1^st to 4^th grades taking advantage of this ASP program! We also have few visitors coming to the school and appreciating the teachers’ effort in sharing their love, knowledge and time with these poor children.  ABC-BB youngest volunteers celebrate their 14^th birthday with the Edelweiss kids and staff.

Attendance and Nutrition

No. of students enrolled: 141

Total number of meals served this month: 4,804

No. of school days: 24

No. of Students Enrolled (Day): 104

Average attendance: 92

Attendance in %: 88

No. of Students Enrolled (ASP): 37

Total breakfasts served: 2,201

Total lunches served: 2,127

Total meals served at ASP

(After School Program): 476

Total number meals served since opening at Edelweiss: 143,409

Total ABC-BB School partnership meals since opening: 226,040

Curriculum

Math

K4 children learned writing and recognizing numbers from 1-10 and also to count from 1-20.  In Fun with Math they learned about patterns, what comes next and many activities associated with this.

K5 children learned numbers from 1-80 and were given writing practice on numbers from 1-80.

English

K4 learning Jolly Phonics

With the help of images, jolly song and action K4 children learned the sounds of t, i, p, n, c, k and e.  Children also learned to blend sounds.

K5 children learned the sounds of letters c, k, e, h, r, m, d, g, o, u, l and f.  They also learned blending words, reading sentences, recognizing and writing the sounds.

Local Language Kannada:

This month kids were writing letters of Kannada language alphabets on slate and book.

Social Science

Learning about family – Social Science

This month they learned about the WORLD through a story

They also were read many stories on all about my family, all about my friends and all about my home.

Value Education

Mr.Josef entertaining children with Moral Stories

This month they learned about –

“Let’s do things together”, “Learning to give” and “Let’s tell the truth” with moral stories like the “Dinosaur Roar!” and the “The train ride”

K3 Program

K3 learning their School’s name and Teacher’s name

From stories, rhymes, coloring with crayons, holding pencils to write wavy lines, horizontal lines, vertical lines, learning new words, improving their fine motor skills with catching the ball, pushing the toy cars, lifting the bean bags, blowing bubbles etc, they were kept busy and were learning in large through all the activities designed to improve their knowledge.  They were also introduced to the class room rules, School name and Teacher’s name.

Physical Education

Outdoor play area

Children are encouraged to play in our outdoor- roof top play ground.  Every day, 15 minutes of physical activity is included in the schedule.

ABC schools maintain extreme hygiene in place to combat diseases.  Play area was washed recently to maintain the cleanliness.

Nutrition

Having a YUMMY lunch!

Well balanced nutritious meals were prepared and served every day.  Children were fed breakfast and lunch on all working days.  Delicious meals were prepared and served with love every day at our Edelweiss School!  ABC is very happy to announce that we served record high meals for this calendar year at 8,700 meals through both the ABC schools this month.

After School Program (ASP)

ASP Kids from Grade I to IV

The numbers in the ASP program has increased from 20 students to 37 students of grades 1, 2, 3 and 4.  This program helps the students in the evening with their homework which they bring back from their respective schools.  This program is a supportive program which assists our previous graduates to keep up with their school work.  This month the program ran for 22 days.  A total of 476 evening snacks were provided in the ASP program.

Teacher’s Training

Teacher training at Freesia School

Edelweiss teachers attended a Teacher training session conducted on July 25^th by our volunteer Sue Griffith at the Freesia School.  This was open to all the teachers of Building Blocks Schools.  The topic discussed was about “Importance of Morning Message and Phase one of Phonics”.  All the Managers, teachers and the curriculum coordinators attended the session.  Thank you Mrs. Griffith for conducting one!

Special Birthday Celebrations

Sahana and Rachana sharing the joy with K3 kids

Birthday Celebration at Edelweiss

Cutting the cake on their Birthday

Youngest volunteers of ABC-BB, Sahana Gupta and Rachana Gupta celebrate their 14th Birthday at Edelweiss School.  This is what they had to say –

“Giving something to make the world a better place is a philosophy that we respect.  There is so much sadness in the world, that even the smallest light to banish the abysmal darkness makes an astounding difference”.

Our Birthday at the Edelweiss School was a memorable one.  The children were thrilled to see us and were overjoyed to receive the goodies.  We couldn’t get the smile off our faces the entire time we were there.  We felt really humbled and we loved every minute of the time that was spent there.  Sharing our birthday with these children who have devastating lives, who live in abject poverty felt very touching.  For a minute, they could forget all their hardships in life and enjoy the little occasions for happiness.  It felt good to know that we made a change in their lives by giving them a reason to smile!  May be if we could keep giving them good memories, we could eradicate all the bad ones.  We could give them a better life – a one full of hope, dreams and color.

We think this is going to be the first of many birthdays that we will celebrate at ABC Edelweiss School!

Visitors

Visitors from Soroptimist International

President Sudha Jalan and volunteer Mamta Ghosh from Soroptimist International (SI) visited Edelweiss School to help the school with a fistful of nutrition program.  This is what Mamta Ghosh had to say –

“As I have mentioned SI is a worldwide organization for women and girl child.  We have a consultative status in the United Nations. We are in 129 countries with over 100,000 members all over the globe.  SI Bangalore is one such club out of 14 clubs in India.

Fistful of Nutrition Project has been chosen as the National Project for all Soroptimist clubs in India.  Fistful of Nutrition aims to treat malnutrition and at the same time teaches children coming from well to do families to share with not so well to do families.

We are glad to make Building Blocks as one of our recipients. This decision was taken only after we visited Edelweiss center in Jayanagar.

As they say “First impression is the best impression” we were overjoyed to meet the staff and the children.  We had a warm welcome by Hilda Ambat, Building Block’s Founder’s Wife.  It is indeed a well kept place!  The charming little ones put up a dance number for us as well.

The fact that the children are well fed and well taken care was very appealing to see. We returned with a warm feeling in our hearts that these children are definitely blessed to be under the care of Building Blocks India.”

New Office setup for the Edelweiss School Manager

Edelweiss Manager in her new office

Team of Edelweiss in the new office area

“ABC takes pleasure to announce of a new office space created for the School Manager – A space which was not used effectively for any school activities and it gave way for adding a new classroom for an additional 21 children!”

A brand new office space was created for Mary, the manager at Edelweiss school.  This space was a dead space in the school and not being effectively used for any school activities.  This space worked out perfect for an office with some minor alterations.  Now parents can reach out better to Mary, she has good visibility to the front of the building and she can see who is dropping and picking up kids.

By creating this office we were able to convert the old office room into a classroom which gave way in enrolling 21 additional new kids.  With this new enrollment ABC is now providing education for a total of 104 day scholars and 37 After School Children which is 25% increase in enrollment from last year.

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