Our international team gathered for our first event of the day in Anchorage at Fairview Elementary.
We were greeted at the entrance of the school by these impressive runners, Deliah, Isaiah and Jalih.
They must have an excellent geography teacher because they succeeded in guessing all the countries that we came from.
Teaching the World Harmony Run song is a great way to get everyone moving and to feel some joy and dynamic energy.
Students experiencing our peace in your heart exercise.
Gratitude to Principal Mark Dawson for welcoming the team. It was a great pleasure to offer the school a certificate of appreciation and a special artwork print by the founder of the run, Sri Chinmoy. We also celebrated Princeton's birthday and Abdulgafar, the winner of this month's attendance award.
Papaha loved the fact that the school had their own rack of skis. He would have loved to attend a school that provided opportunities to hit the slopes.
After a fun ceremony we headed outside to give the children the chance to make a wish for peace.
After saying goodbye to the students, we hit the road on our way to our next school visit.
We were welcomed at the gates of the school by some of the students, led by Misa.
Our team loved the philosophy of this school. It was a special day for the school because they were celebrating the birth anniversary of the founder of Montessori schools, Dr. Maria Montessori.
They had a beautiful display of their peace pole at the entrance.
The team were really impressed by their knowledge of geography. Each student that guessed correctly, came up to show the class where the countries were located.
World Harmony Song in action.
This class found it so easy to experience a moment of inner peace. These exercises are very much in line with the philosophy of the Montessori teaching system.
We had time to share some fun skits with the kids to demonstrate how they can create a more peace at school.
The teachers were a little surprised when we asked them to run a lap around the kids and they kept doing laps until each teacher had run a lap with the torch.
We were so happy to offer the Executive Director Laura Roark our certificate of appreciation and an artwork print entitled Hope. The whole school sang happy birthday in honor of Dr. Maria Montessori.
The kids loved holding the torch outside even though it was a little chilly.
Before we headed out running, Natabara guided the kids in a series of stretching exercises.
We loved the Human & Kind motto their sweatshirts.
Our final school visit of the day was at Ocean View Elementary School.
These kids had so much energy and were very enthusiastic to learn the actions to our theme song.
As we arrived they were holding up beautiful pieces of artwork dedicated to peace.
After learning all the dynamic actions of the song, we taught them a basic exercise so they could experience for themselves a moment of inner peace and happiness.
The kids were super eager to head outside to run with the torch and we were all very grateful to the teaching staff for organizing them. They formed a huge rectangle so they could experience running with the torch in an organized way.
At the end of the ceremony, we returned to the auditorium so that Principal Dr. Misty Stein could share with us all the artwork that the children had prepared before our visit.
Gratitude to all the children and staff for making our visit to the school so memorable.
All gratitude to Lobsang Dorjee for kindly providing meals at Yak and Yeti for our hungry team. Everyone absolutely loved the Nepali cuisine. The staff were super cheerful and welcoming.
To finish off the day, we continued running to some beautiful scenic coastal viewpoints.
A wonderful first day in Alaska!
