Light and Shadows

Dosen't this picture say so much?  We love to see the children having so much fun exploring light and shadows!

We introduced the overhead projector, and the children had so much fun putting letters, shapes, and so many other items on it.  The looked at the wall, talked about the shapes, had fun playing with the light and shadows........

Fall Festival

Parents, we are working hard on our fall festival costumes! 

Here is a sneak peak at one of our scuba divers! ;0)

Please plan on being at the festival on Friday, October 29th at 3:30 p.m.

The children will be decorating their pumpkins this coming week, and finishing the rest of their fall festival projects!

Sign up sheets are by the class room....

BE THERE OR BE SQUARE :)

The Next Iron Chefs: Secret Ingredient - PUMPKIN!

It looks like we currently have a cooking class at Little Wonders!  Our little chefs have been busy the past week preparing two dishes with pumpkin....

First we toasted pumpkin seeds....

Everyone tasted the pumpkin seeds, but Phoenix and Bishop LOVED them.......

After we cooked pumpkin seeds, we were eager to cook something else with pumpkins.  We had been reading the book Pumpkin Soup, so we took our chances and made some!

We scooped out the seeds, seasoned the pumpkin, and put it to bake in the oven.

Then we got to reading to see what else we needed to make the soup.

We read all of the ingredients, we can even recognize the letters on the labels of the foods we used.  With the help of our teachers, we cut up potatoes and onions. 

We used the cream, which Hendrix called four, so we actually got out flour to see the difference between flour and cream!  The flour felt so good in our hands and we loved playing with it!  In fact, it was so fun that it wound up all over the kitchen ;0)

When we were done, Phoenix helped clean the door! ;0)

Mmmmm look at our tasty soup!  It was actually so delicious!  Everyone loved it, but the one who loved it the most was Hendrix, he actually came back for seconds!

When their class was done eating, they were nice enough to let the other classes taste it!  Phoenix was a great server! ;0)

It really was delicious, we have the recipe in case anyone is interested!  Your little ones can help you cook it at home!

the well

the last day at the village the team assembled the pump for the well. the village will be celebrating their new well for weeks to come & they started the huge celebration right after the pump was installed for all the team's hard work. the people of the village were so thankful that they planned a wonderful celebration with music, gifts & families from the village made speech's about how wonderful the team was & everything they accomplished for their people. the village built a palm alter around the well before the team got their that morning to surprise them & thank goodness they didn't have to tear it down to build the pump because as you can see it is beautiful. all the children were trying to peek through the palms as the team was finishing the well to see what it looked like, everyone was very excited. after the ribbon cutting one of the older women of the village couldn't wait to be the first to taste the clean water. what an amazing experience to be a part of, something that i know paul will never forget & he's so thankful that he got to be a part of it!!!

final & hardest step of building the pump for the well

finishing the pump/well

the AMAZING team

the palm alter that was built around the well by the people of the village

trying to sneek a peak at the well

the ribbon cutting ceramony

young pumping water for the elder

the first taste of clean water

drilling a well for water

the type of well they built in guatemala was an unconsolidated or sand wells they are drilled into a formation consisting of soil, sand, gravel or clay material that collapses upon itself. a well is composed of many components; the following is a list of the most important materials used:

casing is used to maintain an open access in the earth while not allowing any entrance or leakage into the well from the surrounding formations. The most popular materials used for casing are black steel, galvanized steel, PVC pipe and concrete pipe.

screen keeps sand and gravel out of the well while allowing groundwater and water from formations to enter into the well. Screen is available in many materials, the most popular being stainless steel and slotted PVC pipe. Screen is used when wells are drilled into unconsolidated materials.

gravel pack is placed around the outside of the screen to prevent sand from entering the well or clogging the screen and to stabilize the well assembly.

here's some pictures of the drilling process through 4 days, we have over 1,500 pictures...we thought that might be to many to look at so here's a few. again if you'd like to help with the water crisis please visit http://www.water.cc/

learning how to work the drill



preparing mud pits



making mud



paul working the drill...look out



now that's a wrench

adding steel pipe as we dig deeper and deeper

lowering the PVC pipe into hole, that's not an easy task

as you add more pipe, the task gets even harder

now that we reach the bottom, we must saw the remaining pipe

emptying the mud pits

standing in the mud pits

WE HAVE WATER!!!

ahhh...refreshing clean water



jaime & manolo (team leaders) proud of the work that was accomplished



here is the well topped off. they drilled 145 feet deep. they're getting ready to pour the cement base.



finishing base

testing the water



water specimens



all the different layers of the earth they went through in 5 ft increments per bag