What We Do

Creative Education

In 2010, the Puerta Abierta opened the first creative, nonconventional school in Santiago Atitlan.  Our staff has designed an innovative curriculum that embraces art, discovery and exploration. We host preschool through 6th grade at our center.

Traveling Library

The traveling library is the community outreach project of the Puerta Abierta. Participating local schools receive a visit from an enthusiastic librarian from our center on a weekly basis. While children benefit from exposure to reading and interactive activities, classroom teachers learn how to incorporate literacy into their class curriculum.

Reading Circles

The reading circle program offers a safe place for preteens and teenagers to come together and discuss a book that they are reading as a group. With time and guidance, our teens develop skills to think critically about the literature they are reading and to relate books to their own lives.  

Mothers' Artisan Group

The Mothers’ Artisan Group provides a dignified form of income for the mothers of our students while enhancing their personal creativity and promoting a sustainable income generation for la Puerta Abierta. Our mothers design handmade products, most with a focus on childhood whimsy such as finger puppets, holiday ornaments and cuddly toys. All profits collected from the sold artisan products return to the scholarship fund at la Puerta Abierta. Shop for Mothers’ Artisan Group products.

Garden Club

The garden club provides our students and the community at large with an opportunity to participate in the magic of organic plant growth.  Both children and adults alike marvel over the process of a seed transforming into a plant when they have the occasion  to slow down, dirty their hands and be close to nature.  In addition to offering our students and families an  authentic experience to grow and taste their own food, the club also engages students in a variety of  academic subjects from animal habitat to medicinal plants to real-world math concepts like measurement to literary concepts like writing garden inspired Haiku poems.  Equally as important, our garden presents students with an outdoor space where they can engage in unstructured play with contact to their natural world.

Professional Development

La Puerta Abierta offers a variety of workshops to educational institutions throughout the country on themes such as the importance of play in early childhood education, creative story telling strategies and best practices for reading fluency and comprehension.

Photo of teacher
Photo of a woman at a computer with books and markers in the foreground

Libros Abiertos

La Puerta Abierta collaborates with educational projects and schools throughout the country. We offer dynamic, creative and effective training on implementing literacy practices that awaken a love for reading.

 

"When I visited la Puerta Abierta School in Guatemala, I encountered one of the most beautiful school projects and one of the most powerful reading programs I have ever seen. I hope that there will be more of this for all the children of Guatemala and all the children of the world. Join me to support them."
Yuyi Morales
Author and illustrator of many notable and award-winning children's books
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