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

VVA’s 2nd graders are off to a great start this year! In this first month of school we have been reviewing our phonics sounds, improving our reading, and learning how to become better writers. If you were to write about your favorite food or animal, how you describe it? Come visit our classroom and see what our students have to say!

Our Math studies have us learning about patterns in new shapes like trapezoids, hexagons, and parallelograms, as well as patterns found in even and odd numbers. Science class has us exploring what it means to be a scientist. Did you know that we are all scientists as we observe, discover, and write down what we are learning from what we see in God’s creations?

The 2nd graders have especially enjoyed learning about animals in their habitats and beautiful creatures like butterflies. We like to draw, write, and do experiments about what we are learning.

History has been a fun subject to study. Our eyes are being opened to the world as we learn what it was like to live in Ancient civilizations like Mesopotamia and Egypt. When we compare those people and places with our own lives, we can see many differences and similarities.

At the beginning of the school year, we had our first meeting of the Student Service Council. The Student Service Council is an organization of students who meet together to serve our community. At our first meeting, we decided who would serve in each leadership position. Stephen Crowson is the President, Aidan Miller is our Vice President, Abby Miller is our Secretary, and Matthew Crowson is the Communications Officer. We also established our theme verse for the club as Philippians 2:3-4,

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

Each High School student is required to have 25 hours of service each year in order to graduate. At our first meeting, we discussed how that requirement is the secondary reason that we meet and serve together. Our primary reason is because we want to be servants like Christ. At our first service day together, the students showed how much they understand this. On September 27, we spent the morning serving at the African Transformation Network property just outside of Kigali. Our students moved hundreds of boxes of books, helped build a fence, and helped clear brush, all with smiles on their faces and great attitudes.

We are very proud of our students and the hard work they have done so far. They are showing Christ-like attitudes not only during their service hours, but also each day as they interact with the VVA students and staff, and their community. The students are currently planning their next service day, and thinking of other ways that we can serve. If you have any suggestions or ideas of ways that we can help our community here in Musanze, please contact us.

6th grade has started off strong this year! We’ve got  lot on our plate to learn and master before the end  the year, so we’re working hard. We’re mastering  skills, learning new vocabulary, and working  our organization; skills that will take us far not  in school, but also in life! In Language Arts,  been focusing on the different parts of speech,  how to use them in our writing, and practiced a set of spelling words each week. We’ve also reading the book Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen, discussing characterization and vocabulary as we .

This year in the 6th grade, we’re studying  History, focusing on how the United States  interacted with the rest of the world during  events. We started off with the colonies, and  quickly worked our way up through the War of . We’ve charted all of the important people, and terms from the American Revolution, and working on memorizing the Presidents and their foreign and domestic policies.

In Science, we’ve spent the first month learning all about. We’ve collected and categorized leaves from yard, diagramed all of the parts and processes of a plant, and have completed a research project and presentation on the Baboab Tree.

In Math, the 6th graders are working hard on many concepts, including factors and fractions. Along with our core classes, our 6th graders also participate in Physical Education, Art, and Typing each week, and have Bible every morning. All of our students also have the opportunity to take Taekwondo lessons after school 1 to 2 days a week. We are staying busy here in the 6th grade but we are learning a lot!