La Aldea: Stories for a world in transition - A joint effort

Alternance education strategy

Stories for a world in transition

A joint effort Diana Ospina

Katia Rodríguez

Nicolas Chirokoff

Stories for a world in transition

A joint effort Diana Ospina

Katia Rodríguez

Nicolas Chirokoff

Stories for a world in transition

There are books that entertain you with their stories.

Others allow you to study at school. Some you can read for fun as a family. This book does all of them at once!

It’s made to accompany you at home, at school, on gray or sunny days. At night, with or without light, with or without internet.

It’s yours to scratch and color, and you can even give yourself your own score for the challenges and activities!

Each page is written so that you can play, read, learn and above all have fun!

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Let’s get to work!

A joint effort

Name:

Sign here as co-author of the book

School:

Grade: 5

Teachers:

Family:

Stories for a world in transition

With this book you can 1. Read!

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Wh at th i s w i l l h inh time appen abi tan to the A l d t s of L ea? a

s! ark m r you set! n O Get !

Go

2. Play and accept missions!

3. Face challenges!

What’s ma in La A th like ldea?

4. Solve math problems!

A joint effort

6. Ask yourself questions!

ad Inste es? ad of gr a ate L u l a v Ie Can Aldea?

L

They’ll help you say what you think of the activities and challenges

¿

5. Paste stickers!

Unusual Unheard of Uncomfortable

Is ever y ques t valid? ion

7. Ask to speak!

And do I have to answer them all?

¿

ré g o ol

Is

7

? l’s paw o r a C Is this bookmark? ers?

Is it a at gives pow aw th it a cl

Can I stick i the wa t on ll?

8. Become an author!

Stories for a world in transition

What is

La Aldea?

Maybe you live in a big house or maybe in a small one, in a top floor apartment or in one lower down. Maybe you live in a town or a village or in a city. In all of these places, you have neighbors, people you come across on a daily basis.

You’ll know some of them better than others, but they all share the same space. Without knowing it, without anyone telling them, they are part of a community.

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La Aldea, the place where our protagonists live, is just that: a community. It’s a place where animals of different species live together, and some more than others are aware that they need each other to live well.

As you know, living together doesn’t mean we all think the same, or want the same things, or that we always agree.

A joint effort

Learning to live in harmony as a community is a daily challenge that requires effort from everyone, and it’s rarely easy.

The animals that you’ll meet in these stories live through this every day, they’ve gone through all kinds of challenges, and with the arrival of COVID-19 and confronting education between their school and their burrows, the challenges have only increased. How has everyone’s life changed? What fears do they have? How have their interactions been affected?

In the following stories you’ll see how the inhabitants of La Aldea have lived through these changes and you’ll discover that there are many other questions that come to light.

How much is your world like La Aldea? Which animal do you identify with?

Find out in the next few pages.

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Stories for a world in transition

Contents

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01

02

They had forgotten

The rumor

Pg.12 Following the arrival of the pandemic and the imposition of the quarantine...

Pg.50 “We’ve got it!” cried one of the bees triumphantly, and the hive buzzed with applause…

Missions and challenges

Missions and challenges

Pg.20

Pg.58

Math challenges

Math challenge

Pg.42

Pg.80

A joint effort

03

04

The big day

Entre el caos y el orden

Pg.92 The young tapir woke up excited.

After months of waiting and uncertainty and doing his homework in his burrow, the big day had finally arrived…

Pg.128 Papers, books, scraps of food, dust, dirt and grime were taking over Pierre and Pearl’s burrow…

Missions and challenges Pg.102

Math challenges Pg.118

Missions and challenges Pg.138

Math challenges Pg.162

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12

Story 01

They had forgotten…

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Scan this QR code or head to laaldea.co/mundoentransicion to listen to the story!

Stories for a world in transition

Following the arrival of the pandemic and the imposition

of the quarantine, the days passed and La Aldea found itself in a state of hibernation. The animals would poke their heads out of their burrows and greet each other from afar. No one had imagined how much they would miss each other. The ants missed the moorhens, the moorhens missed the macaws, the macaws missed the opossums, the opossums missed the bees, and the bees missed the owls. Carol the spectacled bear missed talking with her best friend Lucy the turtle; Arnold the opossum missed talking with his pal Ernest the tapir; and even Ernest, who was recovering from the virus, longed for a good, hearty argument with Peter the porcupine or Lia the crab. Harry the chameleon missed them all.

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“When, oh when will this end?” they wondered.

They had forgotten…

Outside their burrows and nests, meanwhile, the trees were hanging heavy with fruit, the fields were lush and greener than ever, the river flowed clear and strong, and pollution, which just a few weeks earlier had been one of the issues most troubling Lucy, the turtle leader of La Aldea, had decreased.

“At least some good is coming of all this, even in these difficult times,” she thought. “Why does nature flourish when we’re locked inside? It’s worth thinking about.”

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Historias Storiespara for aun world mundo in transition en transición

One cloudless morning, when the sky seemed to stretch perfect blue without end, the owl professor went out to collect his food for the week. He was about halfway on his journey when he saw something that stopped him dead in his tracks.

At the same time, Carol the spectacled bear was leaning out of her window enjoying the morning’s breeze and beauty, and it didn’t take long for her to identify the figure that was painted on the horizon. She could hardly believe it. Were her eyes playing tricks on her?

The moorhens, basking in the sun, jumped to attention when a shadow streaked across the sky and left them breathless.

What was that in the sky?

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“It’s an alien!” cawed a moorhen.

They Lo habían had forgotten… olvidado

“It’s a hawk!” cheeped another.

“It’s Super-Hen!” called a third.

Black as coal and with a collar of flawless white feathers, his wings outstretched, and his chest broad and proud, they saw the largest bird any of them had ever seen. Next to such an animal, the moorhens looked like tiny ants.

“So this is how the insects feel!” one of them thought.

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Stories for a world in transition

The owl professor, after observing the newcomer for a few minutes, realized what an important occasion this was, and flapped off immediately to tell Lucy. He made sure not to break the restrictions, and wore his beak-mask.

“He’s back,” he whispered, his feathers standing on end.

“Who’s back?” Lucy asked, intrigued.

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“The condor,” the owl professor replied in a small voice.

Lucy felt her old heart leap out of her chest and her eyes fill with tears. It seemed incredible! She’d have to see this for herself! She slowly climbed the highest hill in La Aldea and stared out across the horizon. And… yes, there he was.

This was no dream. Condors hadn’t been seen in La Aldea in so long that they were commonly believed to be extinct.

Animals in other villages had thought they were a threat and had committed terrible crimes against their kind.

For Lucy and the inhabitants of La Aldea, seeing him there now with his immense wings silhouetted against the blue sky was a perfect symbol of hope, a sign that everything would be alright in the end.

She wiped tears from her eyes and bowed low in reverence to the condor. Folding a black wing beneath himself solemnly, he returned the gesture, and took flight again.

They had forgotten…

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“See you soon,” Lucy whispered as the giant bird melted into the horizon.

In her heart there arose a question: “when we come out of our burrows and all this is over, will the condor come back again?”

Stories for a world in transition

Have you

forgotten, 20

too?

The animals had been going about their daily tasks in La Aldea for so many years that they had forgotten two important things: first, that their relationship with those who did not live nearby were weakening and, second, that the growth and development of La Aldea had impacted the environment. The appearance of a majestic giant that they had not seen for a long time reminded them that they were not the only or the most important thing in the world.

Mission: think about your place in the world and your connection to animals, plants and the environment. The following challenges will allow you to understand the story “They had forgotten” while strengthening your empathy and environmental awareness.

They had forgotten…

Hmm, I’ve forgotten what I’d forgotten

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Remember that you can use the stickers at the end of the book to say what you think about the challenges.

Stories for a world in transition

Challenge 1 Tell the story your way! Use each box to write, draw or paste cutouts, and narrate your own version of “They had forgotten”. Make up another title for the story.

Title:

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They had forgotten…

Challenge 2 Put your colors to work. Draw the reaction of the first animal in the story that noticed the condor.

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Challenge 3 I need you and you need me! The animals of La Aldea missed each other, but who missed whom? Complete the phrases.

“The ants missed the moorhens, the moorhens missed the macaws, the macaws missed the opossums, the opossums missed the bees, and the bees…”

Complete: The bees missed Carol the spectacled bear missed Arnold the opossum missed was missed by Harry the chameleon.

Stories for a world in transition

Challenge 4 We miss those who are important to us! Think about who you’ve been missing lately and who you’d like to see again soon. Then complete the following miss-ometer.

1. Draw yourself in the center of the diagram.

2. Draw the four people you miss the most in the outer circles and write down their names.

3. Color the line that connects you to them according to your level of missing, like this:

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Yellow line: miss a little (you miss them, but not so much).

Orange line: medium missing (you miss them, but you can wait a little while to see them again).

Red line: maximum missing (you want to run to see them now).

4. Draw around each one of them two people that you know or think they miss. Try to identify the level of missing according to each case.

Note: the answers to this exercise are what you think and feel at this moment. You could do it again another day and it would be totally normal for the answers to change. That’s how missing works!

They had forgotten…

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Who missed the condor?

Who misses you?

Stories for a world in transition

Challenge 5 Art and emotion. Drawing the loved ones that we miss is a very effective method of feeling closer to them, and of paying tribute to how important they’ve been in our lives. Think of the person you miss the most right now, draw them and explain your strategy for feeling closer to them, despite the distance.

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They had forgotten…

Emotion of the minute. What emotion or emotions are you experiencing now?

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What do art and emotions have to do with each other?

In what part of the body do you feel this “missing”?

Stories for a world in transition

Challenge 6 Forget more, forget less. Our brains can’t remember absolutely everything. But we can try not to forget important things. Use the following forgetometer to find out what you remember and forget.

Locate the following next to the forgetometer:

Doing homework Washing my hands regularly

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Wearing a mask when I’m with company and when going out Covering my nose and mouth when coughing or sneezing Saying “please” and saying “thank you” The taste of my favorite food The feeling of giving or receiving a hug The sounds of nature Write down others that you can think of

They had forgotten…

I always forget

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I never forget

Why are there some things that I remember and others that I forget?

Stories for a world in transition

Challenge 7 Welcome balance! Carefully read the following questions and design a challenge so that other children can understand what balance is.

What would happen if you played 24 hours a day?

What would happen if you ate all the food in your house by yourself?

Why do some animals seem to be retaking their territories while humans are sheltering in their homes? ● When mobility restrictions for humans end, will animals have to go back into hiding?

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● What would happen if buildings and cities were built on every corner of Planet Earth?

They had forgotten…

What is extinction? Extinction is the disappearance of all members of a species, that’s to say, when its last individual dies. It can happen because of natural phenomena (like the meteorite that killed the dinosaurs millions of years ago) or by human actions (such as the white rhinoceros, which poaching threatens to make extinct).

Owl’s word

Challenge 8 Sometimes it’s in our hands! Have you heard of endangered animals and plants? Imagine if from one moment to the next there were no more birds around you. Due to human actions, the condor and other living things, such as spectacled bears, have seen their homes and access to food affected. Talk with your teachers and family members, and identify a plant or animal species in your region that is in danger of extinction.

What would it be like to live without plants and animals around us?

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Stories for a world in transition

Challenge 9 Everything is relative! If the condor were located next to other giants of nature, it would feel like the moorhen in the story (like a small insect).

Compare your size to that of the animals in La Aldea.

1. Stand up against a wall, measure your height in centimeters and write it down.

2. Now spread your arms out to the side and ask someone to measure the distance between your two middle fingers from end to end. That distance is called the span. Write it down.

3. Draw your height on the middle vertical ruler in the diagram below.

Compare your height with that of the moorhen and the condor, and say how you feel compared to them?

Moorhen

Me

Condor

-180

-180

-180

-160

-160

-160

-140

-140

-140

-120

-120

-120

-100

-100

-100

-80

-80

-80

-60

-60

-60

-40

-40

-40

-20

-20

-20

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They had forgotten…

4. Draw yourself with your arms extended over the middle horizontal ruler, based on the span you recorded. Compare your size with that of the moorhen and the condor, and explain how you feel compared to them.

Moorhen

Wingspan: 60 cm

150 130 110 90 70 50 30 10 0 10 30 50 70 90 110 130 150

Me

Wingspan: 33

150 130 110 90 70 50 30 10 0 10 30 50 70 90 110 130 150

Condor

Wingspan: 300cm

150 130 110 90 70 50 30 10 0 10 30 50 70 90 110 130 150

Stories for a world in transition

The condor is so big that it can’t fit through the door!

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Are humans more important than plants and animals?

They had forgotten…

Challenge 10 Lights and shadows. Did the shadow of the condor completely cover the moorhen home? This game will help you understand that when we talk about size, everything is a matter of perspective.

1. Trace the silhouettes and transfer them to cardboard

2. Cut out and glue a popsicle stick to the back of the condor.

3. Cut out and glue the moorhen home to the wall.

4. Ask an adult to help you hold a flashlight, candle or lamp in the dark and project the silhouette of the condor against the wall where the moorhen home is.

5. Answer these questions: what happens to the shadow if you move the silhouette away from the light source? What happens if you zoom in with the silhouette again?

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Stories for a world in transition

Challenge 11 “So that’s how insects feel!”

One of the moorhens, seeing the size of the condor and feeling small, thinks that perhaps insects feel the same way when they see moorhens. The moorhen put herself in the insects’ “shoes”. Have you ever put yourself in someone else’s shoes? That’s called empathy! Look up the meaning of the word and remember a time that you’ve been empathetic. Write your memory down so you don’t forget it.

What would the world look like if you were a bird?

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Challenge 12 A condor interview. What would you ask the condor to find out more about it? Imagine that the condor came to your neighborhood and write three questions that you would ask him to get to know him better, and to understand his point of view and his emotions. Help others to empathize with this endangered animal.

1.

2.

3.

They had forgotten…

Take care of yourself. You’ve earned a

nice, deep breath! Take a breath for five seconds and release it over ten seconds.

When you’re finished, have a glass of water.

Challenge 13 During the quarantine, life outside the burrows seemed to flourish: “The trees were hanging heavy with fruit, the fields were lush and greener than ever, the river flowed clear and strong, and pollution… had decreased.” What can you deduce from this sentence? What conclusions can you draw? Write your answers down.

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Stories for a world in transition

Now, ask yourself the same question as Lucy: “Why does nature flourish when we’re locked inside?”

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They had forgotten…

Challenge 14 Let’s play with words! Create an alphabet soup with the following words.

Pandemic, Quarantine, Hibernation, Horizon, Extinction, Reverence, Solemn, Meditate, Imposition, Pollution. Ask a family member to solve your word search and, each time they find one of the words, define it together and write its meaning and a synonym on the next page. Let the challenge begin!

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Stories for a world in transition

1. Pandemic:

2. Quarantine:

3. Hibernation:

4. Horizon:

5. Extinction: 40

6. Reverence:

7. Solemn:

8. Meditate:

9. Imposition:

10. Pollution:

They had forgotten…

Challenge 15 A verse while I converse. Write a poem about forgetting with some of the synonyms for the words you defined.

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Where do the things we forget go?

Stories for a world in transition

Math challenges 1. How big is the condor?

When she saw the condor, the moorhen Gloria felt tiny. She thought that next to the condor, she looked as small as an ant would look next to her. So she asked an ant to stand next to her. Then she asked an owl - who was an excellent artist - to draw a picture of both of them. Here it is: 42

They had forgotten…

If you built a tower of ants, how many ants would it take to reach the height of the moorhen? Draw the picture and answer the question.

Seven!

You’d need 7 ants

The owl took his drawing and noticed that the ants were very uneven and their tower was not vertical (it was leaning to the side).

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Stories for a world in transition

He decided to erase the ants and start over. The owl drew a blue rectangle around the ant and a red one around the moorhen. He concentrated so that the blue rectangle was exactly as tall as the ant, and the red rectangle was exactly as tall as the moorhen.

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With a ruler, measure the dimensions of the blue rectangle and reproduce it on a separate sheet of paper.

Create several copies of the blue rectangle and cut them out. Check that they are the same by holding the copies on top of each other.

Inside each blue rectangle draw an ant.

Now build a tower of blue rectangles. How many are needed to reach the height of the red rectangle?

They had forgotten…

Very good! The height of the moorhen is four times the height of the ant. That is, if you take the height of the ant and multiply it by 4, you will get the height of the moorhen.

Check it out!

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Can you draw the condor next to me?

How big?

Next to the condor I look as small as an ant looks next to me. So the height of the condor must be equal to four times my height.

Stories for a world in transition

The owl concentrated and drew this:

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Is the owl’s drawing correct? Did he keep the proportions indicated by the moorhen?

How could you check it?

The moorhen measured the height of the red box and the height of the green box.

No! The condor you painted is twice as big as me. It must be four times as big!

They had forgotten…

Help the owl draw a green box of the right size. Then, inside, draw the condor.

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Stories for a world in transition

More practice: 1. Look at the figure below. Compare what the moorhen measures with her outstretched wings (from left wingtip to right wingtip) with what the condor measures with outstretched wings.

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Complete the phrases: The moorhen is

centimeters from end to end.

The condor measures

centimeters from end to end.

The measurement of the condor with outstretched wings is times as large as the measure of the moorhen with outstretched wings.

They had forgotten…

2. If the moorhen weighs 8 kg and the condor weighs seven times what the moorhen weighs, how many kg does the condor weigh?

3. If a condor feather is 60 cm long and is six times as long as a moorhen feather, how long is a moorhen feather?

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4. Many years ago in La Aldea there were 120 moorhens. At that time, the population of moorhens was 30 times as large as that of condors. How many condors were there then?