Money, Money, Money

It is important to learn about money so that we can buy and sell things and learn to save and budget. In Maths, we have been learning about money.

In Tanzania the currency is shillings. The coin with the lowest value is a 1 shilling coin. None of the students have seen one before. 1 shilling is not much money. 1 small lolly costs 20 shillings so for 1 shilling you can't buy many things any more. You can get gold coins and silver coins in Tanzania. There are also notes.

Isaya with some Tanzanian notes and coins.

It was interesting to learn that in other countries there are different coins and notes. Sabrina found some pictures in a book to share with the class. The pictures show the coins of Ghana.

Clara found some coins at home from Kenya and the United States of America. She brought them to school to show us all. The American note was not very colourful.

In Maths, we made lollies and then set up shops. We sold our lollies to other students in the class. We had to use Maths to pay and give change. It was fun to buy and sell the lollies that we made.

Questions:
1. What is the money called in your country?
2. What is the value of your smallest note or coin?
3. Why do we need money? What did people do before money?
4. Learn about currency conversion with your teacher. Figure out how much 5,000 shillings is in your country's money.

Our Sponsors

This week we would like to write about our sponsors. Our sponsors pay our school fees. Without sponsors we would not be able to come to STA and learn every day.

STA sponsors come from lots of different places including the USA, The Netherlands, Australia and England. We write letters to them two times during the year. We like writing to our sponsors so they can learn more about us.

Regina is sponsored by a couple in Australia. She started at STA in January but did not get a sponsor until this month. She was so excited to finally have a sponsor and keeps asking the names of her sponsors so she can say them over and over again and tell everyone about her new friend in Australia.

Our sponsors are all different kinds of people. Some students have just one person sponsoring them, others have a family. George and Asha have whole schools sponsoring them.

Our sponsors can even write to us. Recently, Miriam and Salim received letters from their sponsors. They read about what their sponsors like, what they do and how they live. Sabra even got to meet her sponsors when they visited earlier in the year. She gave her letter to her sponsor in person and got to say thank you!

Miriam and Sabra reading the letter from Miriam's sponsor Maddie.

When we receive letters from our sponsors we share them with out classmates so that everyone can learn something new. It is really great to know that someone who we have never met cares so much about us and our education.

Questions:
1. Why do we need sponsors to pay school fees?
2. Why do we like getting letters from our sponsors?
3. Imagine you are an STA student, write a letter to your sponsor.

Solar Power

In Science, we have been learning about the sun. Not only does the sun help the plants in our garden grow but it can give us power! In Tanzania, not many people have electricity in their house. In fact, in Tanzania, only one in every ten people have electricity in their house. So, many people use fires for cooking and candles and kerosene lamps for light at night time.

 On the farm, where our school is, there are solar panels. These solar panels take in the sun's rays and makes electricity from them which we can then use to charge and power things.

 There are 16 solar panels which give enough electricity to charge computers, and light the children's home that is on the farm and a whole other house. It would even be enough power to run a fridge, if we had one! We charge the computer and the ipad that we use at school thanks to the solar panels.

Solar power is a great power source because there is so much sun where we live in Tanzania. We leant about solar powered lamps. If you have a solar powered lamp then you don't have to buy batteries all the time, so it is a bit cheaper. The sun gives us its rays for free!

Questions:
1. How many solar panels do we have at the farm?
2. What are the different types of power?
3. How does electricity make people's lives easier?
4. If you didn't have power, how would your life change?

Cucumber Craziness

At STA, we have been working hard to grow vegetables in our Shapes Garden. Nearly 3 months ago we planted cucumbers and kunde (cowpeas). We also planted some other vegetables like carrots, onions and spinach but we haven't had much luck growing them yet.

We have gardening jobs to do every morning. Some of us water and others weed. Plants need water every day to help them grow.

Miriam collecting water.

We prepared the cucumber garden bed by collecting good soil and  pouring it in. We also mixed in some manure. Our cucumber plants started off as small shoots and then grew into vines. It was so exciting watching the cucumbers grow from tiny little buds to big cucumbers ready for eating.

We have grown 5 cucumbers so far and there are still more getting big enough to pick every day.

It took a lot of work and it took a while but it was great to grow our own food rather than just buying it from the market. We ate one of the cucumbers and then gave the rest to Baba Davi, our cook and he used them to made a salad.

Questions:
1.How many cucumbers did we grow?
2. Do you have a school garden? What do you grow in it?
3. Are cucumbers good for you? Research and report to your class.
4. Which job do you think you would prefer: watering or weeding? Why?

Halloween

Today our American volunteer teachers Justin and Alisha taught us all about Halloween and how it is celebrated in the States. We learnt that you make Jack-o-laterns to scare away spirits and ghosts from your house. There are not many pumpkins in town at the moment so Justin and Alisha made a Jack-o-latern out of a watermelon.

They explained to us that, in America, children usually dress up as something scary (but you can dress up as anything you want, like a princess). They showed us how to make scary masks. We had fun making our masks.

Alisha explained to us that, in America, on Halloween night lots of children go "Trick or Treating" in their town. They wear their costumes and visit people's houses and get lollies. As we left the classroom we got a ghost lollypop if we said "Trick or Treat". It was very exciting! We even scared our van driver, Mugi, with our masks.

Questions:
1. Do you celebrate Halloween in your country? If yes, how do you celebrate?
2. Which do you think would be easier, making a jack-o-latern out of pumpkin or watermelon? Why?
3. Make your own Halloween mask.

Hairy Adjectives

At STA from Prep to Standard 3, we have been learning about adjectives. We are learning that an adjective tells us more about a noun. We always put the adjective in front of the noun. Which sounds right to you? An ice cream yummy OR a yummy ice cream!

Guava and Orange reading groups today practised using adjectives to talk about hair. They have been reading a book called 'My Hair' and they have been learning about all the different colours, lengths and shapes of people's hair around the world. George really wants to see a photo of someone with orange hair. He has never seen that before.

Each student put on a wig and then we made up sentences about their hair. Here are some of the sentences that the students made up.

"George has pink hair"
"He has short hair"


















"Doris has brown hair"
"She has plaited hair"

"Asha has short blond hair"
"She has curly hair"

"Mariam has long hair"
"She has beautiful black hair"
"She has a short fringe"














It was great fun dressing up in wigs and learning about adjectives at the same time.

Questions:
1. Tell us about your hair. How many adjectives can you think of to describe your hair?
2. Who has the longest hair in your class? How ill you measure it?
3. Create a graph about your classmates' hair. How many have curly, straight, long, short etc...?
4. Write a short story about hair. Use at least 10 adjectives in your story to make it nore interesting.
5. How many adjectives are there in this blog post. Write them down and then get your teacher to check them.

STA staff

On this blog you read a lot about the students who attend STA. This week we would like to tell you about some of the people who work at STA and make sure the students learn, eat and get to school each day.

Teacher Leonard
Teacher Leonard started at STA when the school opened in June last year, that makes him the first STA teacher. He teaches our Standard 2 and 3 students (Grade 2 and 3). He is also our Swahili teacher. He comes from Nairobi in Kenya.

What do you like about teaching at STA?
All the staff at STA are passionate. It is a great place to teach.

Where did you teach before you came to STA?
I taught at a school in Kenya. It was overcrowded. There were too many students and not enough teachers.

Which subject do you like teaching the most?
I enjoy teaching Maths and English.

Teacher Lauren
Teacher Lauren started at STA in January this year. She teaches the Prep and Standard 1 students (Kinder and Grade 1). She is also our Visual and Performing Arts teacher. She comes from Melbourne, Australia.

What do you like about teaching at STA?
I think all the students are fantastic and they love learning, they also love dancing and singing. The students work really hard. I find it very difficult to learn Swahili and so I understand how hard it must be for them to speak in a different language, English, at school every day. They are real chatterboxes though and never let language difficulties get in the way of talking!

Where did you teach before you came to STA?
I taught at a school called Wilmot Road Primary School in Shepparton, Australia. It is a great school and I miss the students and staff there. I was very happy I could visit them when I went to Australia in September.

Which subject do you like teaching the most?
I really love teaching English, especially reading. It makes me very happy when a student learns to read a new word.

Mugi
Mugi drives the school van. He picks up students in town in the morning and then drops them home at night. Without Mugi, some students would have to walk for more than an hour to get to school. He plays great music in the van which we love listening to, especially a song called 'Chichi Buddo'by Father Goose. Mugi has been working with The Baobab Home, the organisation that runs the school, for more than 5 years. He has driven the STA van since the school opened last year. He comes from Tanzania.

Baba Davi
Baba Davi is the cook here at STA. He makes delicious and healthy meals for us to eat. We love when he makes pilau on special days. We also love meat and gravy. He has to serve 25 students, and the teachers, and the pre-school kids and all the other people that work and live at the farm. Baba Davi started working at STA last month. He comes from Tanzania.

There are so many other people who help out at STA. Some people come all the way from places like the USA, Sweden, and New Zealand to help out at the school for free. They are called volunteers. Lots of Tanzanian people help out as well, including some parents of students. We hope to tell you about all these people in another post. Stay tuned!

Questions:
1. What does Mugi do? Why is his job important?
2. Which countries do the 4 staff members that you read about come from?
3. Which job would you like to do if you could choose (teaching, driving or cooking)?
4. List all the people that work at your school? How many are there? What do they do?