China Wrap-Up, Wailele Podcast, and Pennies for Patients Winners!

Pennies for Patients Winners!
Your children won the prize for having raised the most money, $445.05, and having the best art display.  We graciously gave the art prize to another excellent entry.  We will have a pizza party to celebrate raising the most money on Wednesday, May 21.  Please do not sent home lunches on that day unless your child does not want pizza.

China Inquiry Wrap-up
In early May, I showed my aged slides from my visit to China 30 years ago, and Mr. and Mrs. Trowbridge presented a PowerPoint of China today. What a contrast!! My photos revealed a country still deep in Maoist traditions: people dressed in drab, blue and gray Mao jackets and pants, almost everyone riding identical bicycles, antiquated factories, defaced religious statues, revolutionary art, and thin folks who were often unsmiling. In contrast, modern China is ablaze with color, people are fashionable and more prosperous, art and religion are thriving, too many cars choke narrow streets, and people are smiling a lot more!

As the children offered their observations and compared and contrasted what they had seen, our discussions ranged from understanding the economic and social changes to exploring the history of this ancient civilization. The Trowbridges had books and photos of their visits to the Great Wall and Xian. The kids were fascinated to hear first-hand about all our adventures.

Ms. Pang and AS also shared their experiences living in Shanghai and AS's Memory Book from the International School he attended there. The children learned more about Chinese language, customs, and celebrations. We wish to thank the Trowbridges and Ms. Pang for enriching our knowledge of life and the world!

Science Inquiry
We've recently explored the power of magnets, dropped oranges and grapes to see which lands first (ask your child about this, if he or she has not already asked for your hypothesis), and made parachutes to test our assumptions about gravity. Next week, we will wrap up this Inquiry with some interesting light experiments.  You should be proud of your young scientists. Their scientific curiosity and reasoning are developing nicely!

Poetry
Your children consider themselves poets and have enjoyed both writing poetry and helping others refine theirs on the SmartBoard. We have spent a couple of hours of class time outside observing and writing impressions in our Learning Logs, which we then turn into a variety of poetic forms. We hope our moms enjoyed their Mother's Day poems!

Wailele Podcast
The 1/2 Multi-Age teachers will soon be publishing a podcast with clips from our exciting study of Wailele. There will also be links to individual class offerings. A number of the children in our class will share their legends and poetry about Wailele. We are very excited to be using this technology to share our Wailele Inquiry with you!

Conferences
Just a couple of reminders: 

These are Student-Parent-Teacher conferences, so your child needs to attend the conference with you. If this is not possible, please let me know so we can change the conference time to accommodate everyone. Your child has worked hard to prepare for their conference with you!

Please, come about 10 minutes before your scheduled conference to have a look at the things your child has added to their Portfolio.  This is not the time to read everything, but to have a sense of what your child has accomplished before you come in to the conference.  The Portfolios will go home with you after the conference and you can enjoy looking at them in detail with your child then.

Mahalo
A special mahalo to Dr. Ichinose, who has given our class the gift of wonderful stories that touch our hearts and spirits. His message this week was based on The Rainbow Fish, and the discussion centered on respect; how to be a good, caring friend; realizing that we all have choices; and understanding how our actions affect others.  Thank you for caring!

When you see Mrs. Yoshikawa, please take time to thank her for being our 'Ohana representative and doing the Scholastic book orders. We appreciate you!!

Thank you, Mr. Cutter, for arranging our exciting visit with the governor and our tour of the State Capitol!

Posted on May 16, 2008 10:26 AM | Permalink