Lighthouses by Amisadai

We have been learning about lighthouses. Did you know that the tallest lighthouse in Africa is in Madacasgar and was built in 1932? We have made two ligthouses in school! I have been reading "The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge" and before that, I was reading "Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie." I liked "The Little Red Lighthouse" best because it has so many good words and things like onomatapia (like "flash" "s-s-s-salute" "chug chug cheerio" and "hoot") and personification (the lighthouse talks and the fog reaches down like a person and tries to clutch the boats).

Making Louisa's lighthouse

We have been making lighthouses too! Louisa has made a red and white stripy lighthouse with a yellow roof. It has a lightbulb and she made a circuit for it. She has been reading "The Lighthouse Keepers Lunch" and made some puppets for a puppet show. She has made Mr and Mrs Grinling and three scavenging seagulls and Hamish the cat and a boat called Billy (I made a boat too, called Puffin!)

Making my lighthouse (in the end I
needed a mould)

I made my lighthouse out of clay. It has a gallery of clay and a clay roof and the lantern room is made of a glass jar. It is lit by a torch inside; I tried a candle but it went out without air in the glass. I tried with a plastic bottle, but it melted that! We made the lighthouses on Friday and also had a movie night! We watched Pete's Dragon which is all about a dragon called Elliot and his friend, Pete and they end up living in a lighthouse. 

I miss you all very much! (You can learn the word for "light" in Swahili on our Swahili page.) 



With our lighthouses and boats



Pioneer Day in Tanzania

Yesterday we had a pioneer day. I have been learning about pioneers. (Mama from Canada started teaching us when she was here!) Pioneers are people that make a new way, like travelling west in North America to make new homes in a new land. They travelled in covered wagons and built log cabins to live in.

This a photo of the log cabin and wagon that we made.

Yesterday we played pioneer games like cats cradle and "find the pepple." We did pioneer cooking. We made johnnycake and popcorn.


We dried the corn in the sun and then ground it in the pestle and mortar into flour.



The Johnnycake was yummy!

Making popcorn chains



Here are the paper cut-outs we made. In Little House on the Prairie, Laura does this.
We have been reading Little House in the Big Woods at bedtime.



We also made ice ceam with Laura (not Laura from Little House in the Big Woods!) Did you know you can make ice cream without a freezer? You can try it at home with bags and ice and some cream. It is very fun, but you have to shake shake shake and you might get a bit wet! Here are the instructions! Make You Own Ice Cream

Shake shake shake! It's very cold!

10 minutes later ... ice cream!



Yum! Real ice cream!

I think that life as a pioneer was different in North America years ago because they had to live in cold snow, they did not have landcruisers like us and they might be attatcked by BIG bears! Life as a pioneer in Tanzania is similar because we get milk from a cow like they do, and we both make our own butter and ice cream. We both have chickens and pigs to look after and eat, and there are lots of outhouses here too!

Now I am 5 (by Louisa)

We have had lots of fun! We had Mama and Papa come to stay with us! Amisadai got Monopoly for her late birthday present and we played it lots of times! I got a pink ukulele which I really love! Anne (Perry) would really like it! We took Mama and Papa shopping at the market and at the Sisters Mission. Papa went up Gangilonga Rock, but I stayed at the bottom with Mama. They taught us school a little bit, we have been learning about Pioneers and bears. We made a log cabin and a covered wagon.





Mama bought us a big red bucket so we can have a better bath! But we haven't been able to use it
 much because we haven't had much running water, so we have to use a jug and small bowl!

I had three birthdays! I had one with Mama and Papa and had a chocolate cake. I had another birthday in Dar es Salaam and had a lovely pink and white cake. Then I had a little tea party with our EI friends when we got back to Iringa and had pink cakes because Auntie Philly and our friends in Canada gave us pink food colouring and sprinkles! 

Playing my ukulele!




Thank you Alice for my lovely purse and stickers!

And on the way home from Dar es Salaam, (it is a very long bus ride) we saw lots of animals like zebras, giraffes and elephants! 

Elephants in Mikumi (see the little baby one!)
Find out what elephant is in Swahili on our Swahili page!