To kick off one of our recent units on geography, parents joined their children in preschool for an International potluck to celebrate the diversity among our students. Together we sampled food (brought by parents) from various countries. While we have six different countries represented among our ten preschoolers, we are excited to add to our numbers and nationalities as we welcome new students in January.

Looking back at these last few months of school, I am amazed at how much these students have already grown and changed! They love to participate and class, and can hardly contain themselves when it is their chance to be the, “classroom helper.” I look forward to watching them continue to grow and learn throughout the school year.

~ Mary Clayton

On Dec. 6, VVA hosted the first annual VVA Festival. This was a wonderful time of food, fun, and connecting for students, parents and staff of VVA and people from the surrounding community. Thank you to all of the parents who donated snacks and drinks for the festival and to our teachers and staff who put so much work into preparing. Our hope is that VVA can be a blessing not only to our students and their families, but to our entire community. We want VVA to be a place where many different kinds of people can come together and find common ground helping to contribute to the unity of our city. We are already looking forward to the 2015 VVA Festival and hope to see all of you there!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the 2nd grade! We have been blessed to continue learning and excelling in our studies.

Science class has taught us about the sun, wind, and weather. We’ve also learned about natural resources and what we can do to help protect those resources for future generations. We live in a beautiful place and want to keep it that way.

Math took a creative turn when we learned how to read the measurements in a recipe and made some special cookies during classtime! Mmmmm, good.

One thing that these two girls are great at doing is writing creative stories! Every Friday they have time during class to write freely and creatively. They also using their writing skills to give encouraging notes to many teachers and students at school. God wants us to put our words and skills to use to glorify Him!

We really enjoyed helping to prepare for and participate in our school festival. We met many new people and it was a super fun day!

Blessings to you all.

~ Love, Mrs. Andrea

On December 16th, we took an exciting VVA field trip! The primary school and secondary school went to a concert put on by a group of local Korean volunteers. They performed traditional Korean songs, a few Beatles songs, and a round of Christmas carols to finish it off! We were also introduced to a Korean instrument, the gayagum, which was played by a woman in a traditional Korean outfit. It was a great afternoon for all of us, but especially for our 2nd graders. They are currently learning about Geography in their Social Studies class, so before we went to the concert we located South Korea on a globe and talked about where it is in relation to Rwanda!

As an American International school, we are eager to expose our students to as many cultures as we can, not just American and Rwandan.  It’s a treat that we can have these kinds of cultural experiences right here in Musanze!

~ Sarah Wheeler

One of the after-school activities available to VVA students is Taekwondo, the Korean form of martial arts. VVA is privileged to have a second-degree black belt, Master Aimable, working with our students to develop their physical and mental skills in Taekwondo. Taekwondo focuses not only on the development of strength, flexibility, speed, and fitness, but also contributes to the development of memory, focus, and self-control. All of these skills are necessary parts of developing holistic health, something we believe in as a school.

Taekwondo is an additional activity that builds upon the foundation of health and fitness that we are developing through active outside playtime in Preschool and through weekly Physical Education classes for our Primary and Secondary students. Recently one of our students, Aidan Miller, participated in the Ambassador’s Cup Taekwondo tournament in Kigali where athletes from 5 countries competed. Aidan is now preparing for the Rwandan National Championships, which will take place later this year. If you are interested in learning more about what Taekwondo is like, stop by any Monday afternoon on the VVA front terrace from 4:00-5:30 to see a class in progress!

~ Matthew Miller

The month of October has gone by quickly for the 2nd grade class. We learned about plants, seeds, and leaves in Science and did many experiments. It was fun to study Ancient Greece and Rome in History and learn about those cultures.

In English, we are keeping a creative writing journal and are expanding our vocabulary by writing using synonyms and using different kinds of sentences. The girls are excited that they have started writing in cursive to make their writing look pretty.

Math keeps us on our toes as we learn facts and try to beat our own scores with daily speed tests. Math Game Monday has been something to look forward to every few weeks.

We hope to see you at the Open House on Sunday, November 16 at 2:30 and show you more of what we are learning!

~ Andrea Miller

Our preschool class is not as quiet as it was at the beginning of the year, or even last month. The student’s personalities are coming out, their confidence is growing, and they are trying out new English words every day! The students love to sing, and their voices can be heard both in circle time and as they play and discover independently during center time. I am so proud of how all of these preschoolers are growing and learning!

~ Mary Clayton

In 6th grade Science, we’re learning all about volcanoes! Living in Musanze, we have the unique opportunity to see many volcanoes from the front porch of our school! We are learning about the structure of volcanoes, the types of eruptions, the types of lava flows, and so much more. We’ve learned that volcanoes aren’t quite as rare as we thought. Asher says,

I always thought volcanoes were rare, but I didn’t know that there were so many volcanoes in the world, especially around the Ring of Fire!

We’re researching information about the volcanoes around the Ring of Fire and everywhere else in the world, but we’re paying close attention to the ones that are here in Rwanda, Uganda, and the Congo. Then we’ll work on our oral presentation skills, and give a report about everything that we’ve learned. To end our study, we’ll build a model of a volcano, one that really has “lava” flowing! This will help us see up close how a volcano works!

~ Sarah Wheeler

If you heard shouts of celebration coming from one of the high-school classrooms or saw some of the high schoolers raising their arms in triumph, don’t be alarmed! At the beginning of the school term, each high-school student set individual goals for their academic calendars. Because there are no deadlines or due dates in the Keystone online classes, students have to set their own schedules and hold themselves accountable to their personal goals. At the beginning of the school term, the students divided the academic school year into 4 equal parts. Then each academic subject was divided into four parts based on the number of assignments.

After dividing the year and class assignments into four parts, we could easily set a goal for each class. This helps us stay on a schedule with our online classes. Reaching our first goal meant that we were 1/4 of the way through our classes and our school year…

~ explained High-school 9th Grader Aidan Miller

With a big smile, Matthew Crowson recalled the Monday after reaching his first goal.

We celebrated by drinking Fantas and eating popcorn all day in our classroom! We worked diligently to keep up with our assignment schedules. Even though we took time to celebrate our success, Aidan and I kept right on working towards our next goal, which is December 18th.

The first goal date was October 23, 2014 and VVA’s 9th Grade Class succeeded in meeting the first goal for all courses! Congratulations to Aidan Miller and Matthew Crowson!

~ Julie Reagan