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Communities around the world

This week we travelled to Kisinga, Uganda to compare this community to ours.  Our travel to Uganda was inspired by the book, Beatrice's Goat by Page McBrier.  This is a true story of a young girl whose life is changed by the kind gift of a goat by "some kindhearted people".  By selling the extra milk the goat produced, Beatrice was able to save money to change her family's life.  The family was able to build a new house but what changed the course of  Beatrice's life was the opportunity to attend                                                                school.











After the book, we looked at pictures of the village.  The children were most interested in pictures of Beatrice as a child and as an adult.  We compiled a list of the similarities and differences in the two communities.  The children had no problem pointing out differences:
- their house aren't painted
- they carry food on their head and we carry it in bags
- they have goats for pets
- we dress differently.

It was much more difficult for the children to identify similarities until we had discussion about our families.  The children were able to make connections between their families and Beatrice's family.  The similarities the children identified were:
- listening to mom, dad, brothers and sisters
- we look after pets like Beatrice cared for her goat
- family
- going to school
- helping at home

The children were able to see that even if communities appear to be very different, we can find similarities through how families work together and how we each play a role within our family setting.

Comments

  1. KateApril 26, 2012 at 8:38 PM

    Hi Deb,

    I liked how you reflected on the children's ability to find differences and were less quick to find similarities. Isn't that the way it's been for a very long time in society? I am so happy that you are taking the time to address this is a way that seems so appealing to the children if the expressions on their faces in the photos are any indication!

    ReplyDelete

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