Hi, kids — 

     Special thanks to Ceci and Finn for the great videos telling my students about snow! I know it’s hard to tell  kids who can’t see, about something they’ve never experienced.  BUT YOU DID IT. They  still tell me they don’t really understand how — or why — you go outside and actually PLAY in it, but I think that’s because winter here (now) is 80 degrees or higher,  don’t you?

Today, I thought I’d tell you about 2 trips we’ve taken  (if you click the photos, I think you can make them bigger) —

                          THIS WEEK WE WENT TO THE COUNTRY, TO A RICE FARM.

In fact these students go out to the country nearly every week – to learn where rice (and sometimes other fruits and vegetables) comes from, and how it is harvested.

When the mold is removed, the rice is compact and moist, then hosed down again, really well. before being covered with sheets of straw and plastic. It will sit that way in the fields for awhile, so it can produce the rice you eat…and Northern Thailand loves: breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack (on a stick: Sticky Rice), dessert…

We packed it really well.

We made about 50 trips with stacks of damp rice. It was just like wet straw!

After the rice was packed, students – and teachers! Got to stomp on it.

We placed layer after layer in the mold.

This mold is used to pack the rice, which was harvested in September.

After working in the morning, we made lunch —

🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘

LAST WEEK WE WENT TO AN EXHIBIT AT CHIANG MAI UNIVERSITY. IT WAS LIKE OUR STATE FAIR, ONLY WITH DIFFERENT FOOD AND NOT SO MANY ANIMALS.

As you know, the kids can’t see, so this is how they figure out what pumpkins are like: how they’re shaped, and where they come from

P