Elizabeth Cicoletti played tour guide for a group of Providence Day transitional kindergarten (TK) students this week, taking them on a journey through Kenya.

The sophomore showed slides of everything from giraffes, elephants, and peacocks to African homes and a soccer field - all to choruses of “oohs” and “ahs” and questions from youngsters that ran the gamut from why houses in Kenya look different than those in the U.S. to why the soccer field had no grass.

“There’s a lot of wind on safari, there’s dust everywhere,” Elizabeth told the students. And fellow tour guide Marly Celebron-Brown, a junior, added: “They have dirt instead of grass on the soccer field because it’s super dry in Kenya.”

Elizabeth, Marly, along with juniors Sanaya Lee, Prableen Kaur, and sophomore Eli Coblenz, all shared their experiences with the TK students from a Round Square International Conference they attended in Nairobi, Kenya in October.

Providence Day is a member of Round Square, an internationally diverse network of 200 schools in 50 countries on six continents. Round Square schools connect and collaborate to offer conferences, the volunteer Big Build, and exchange experiences that develop global competence, character, and confidence.

Prior to the trip, the Upper School students met with TK classes to gather input on what they were curious about and would like to learn, says Pam Heacock, Assistant Head of Lower School. Ms. Heacock also went to Kenya.

“Having Upper School students come back and talk to them about their Kenya journey gives them opportunities to engage with members of the Providence Day community and be active participants in a global world,” Katie Nieves, TK lead teacher, says. “We are excited to host the upper schoolers before we begin our global unit so that they can make connections with the knowledge they've gained from this partnership when we are ‘traveling’ to our four countries: India, Kenya, China, and Germany.”

The transitional kindergartners also received colorful fabrics from Kenya to have in their classrooms.

“The TKers gain quite a bit from this partnership,” Ms. Nieves says. “This offers our TKers opportunities to have conversations with older students about the world around them, see images from around the world, and compare and contrast the communities they currently live in with communities that children their age live in in different countries.”

Jessica Williams, the Director of Global Programs, accompanied the teens to Kenya.

“We’re not just traveling for ourselves,” Ms. Williams says, “but traveling for others, too, when we come back and share the experiences.”