Staff Blog

Jerry Salgo is one of the many people behind the scene making everything go smoothly. He is in charge of the CSC facilities, along with the maintenance and security personnel. While classes have been out on break, his team has been working to repaint and restore the school so that it will look as good as new when the students return near the end of June.

One of the projects they were working on was removing a whirlpool from the therapy room. Cebu Children of Hope School acquired the whirlpool several years ago and it was a great asset, meeting some of the physical therapy needs of our kids. It has since worn out its welcome and is no longer being used. The decision was made to remove it and sell it if possible. Uncle Jerry, being the conscientious steward that he is, needed first to ensure that it was working properly. As a man of high integrity, no task is too small or too silly for him to oversee the details personally. It is one of the many reasons we appreciate his hard work.

Once the removal is complete a new project will begin. The therapists, Jinkee Reasoner and Marwin Abong, have begun developing plans for a sensory wall to be installed. This will provide different tactile stimulation and be part of the therapy treatment for kids at CSC.

Children of Hope School recently celebrated its graduation.

Three students graduated preschool and are ready to move on to kindergarten.

Five students graduated sixth grade and are ready to make the transition from elementary to high school.

It was a fun day to think back on all the hard work the students had put in over the past year.  Each student received an award from their teacher, highlighting their individual accomplishments.   Recognizing the hard work means a lot to each child.  The graduates enjoyed their big day and are excited for next school year. 

For the past few weeks, the preschool class has been learning about landforms.  They now know how to identify mountains, valleys, hills, volcanoes, isthmuses, and islands. 

They even sang a song during their morning meeting about landforms!

They topped off the unit by making their own models using play dough.  Fun stuff! 

Science and Math Day is always fun for everyone at CCHS.  It is a whole day affair full of interesting activities.

Recently, everyone had a lot of fun during the science and math culminating activity.  In the morning, there was a math quiz bowl with the students grouped into teams.  The students took turns answering math questions categorized by levels of difficulty:  easy, average, and difficult.  It was so cool to see the students think and analyze. 

The afternoon events focused on topics the students had been learning about in their science classes.  Different presentations were given by each of the science classes.  The highlight was the demonstration from the Group 4 class about static electricity.   Examples of static electricity were shown using balloons.  The students were amazed with what they saw and discovered.  It was super fun for everyone!

One of the second grade classes at Cebu Children of Hope School has been working on subtraction in math class.  They've been trying to master that whole regrouping thing in double digit problems where you have to borrow a group of ten from the tens place value (the second column) and add it to the ones place value (the first column) because the bottom number in the ones is larger than the top number.  Remember?  The kids were working on the mechanics of the whole thing and also trying to actually understand what they were doing by using manipulatives, things like cubes and counters and a hundreds chart.  Fun stuff.  The trickiest part of the whole process was actually being able to explain what they were doing.  And for our kids they have to explain in their second language. 

Well, on this particular day they had pretty much mastered the process part of things and were completing some problems on their own.  The last question required them to explain in words when one would need to regroup in any given problem.  The short answer should have been something like, "When the bottom number is bigger than the top number in the ones column."  I am sure Teacher Cris would have accepted an even simpler answer like, "when the bottom number is bigger."  But the most creative answer to the question, "When do you have regroup?" wasn't anything like that.  One student just decided to put off the whole thing for a while.  Her answer to the question was "TOMORROW!"  Needless to say, Cris and I had a good laugh.