The Polynesian Cultural Center was a fascinating place to visit. The Manoa Mountains learned a lot about Samoa, Tahiti, Tonga, Fiji, and Aotearoa.  They played games and musical instruments, got tattoos, and watched the Pageant of Canoes. It was a culturally enriching experience.  

We are gearing up for the art contest, open to all of our students, related to the opera "Kahalaopuna." It is an opportunity to be creative and  submit a piece of art work in any medium which could be incorporated into the final program for the opera. We will be performing the opera in May; this art contest is to raise interest in it.

We will also have a t-shirt design contest for our Manoa Day on April 11. We will be spending the entire day visiting historical sites in Manoa Valley and learning about the history of the valley. Our guest speaker will be Mr. John Clark (Sachi's dad), who is writing a book about Manoa Valley. We will also tour Waikiki because it is part of the Manoa ahupua'a and part of our studies. We will end with a family dinner of Hawaiian food in the dining hall around 5:30 PM. Information and sign-ups will be sent home tomorrow.

Our regular work continues to challenge us, and we are doing a good job on the Literature Circle legends. Reading and discussing the stories in groups, answering the comprehension questions, drawing a plot picture chart, and writing a report of the story have given everyone many opportunities for success in articulating their understanding of what they have read.  Our vocabulary work has helped us to learn the meanings of new words in the legends.

Our creative writing is producing some nice published stories for the authors to share. We hope to have everyone publish a story before we go on spring break. With only six computers on the classroom, we patiently wait our turn as others complete their stories.

Our math has been fun with the math multiplication games that the third graders have been playing. They will be creating practice flash cards to help them learn the more difficult facts. We hope to have everyone learn all the multiplication facts this year.

Our inquiry research about Manoa Valley has everyone working in groups to discuss their impressions of how the valley looked 100 years ago. The groups are creating posters to share their ideas. The concept of the ahupua'a and how the Hawaiians shared their natural resources has been interesting to learn since the Manoa ahupua'a extends from the valley to Waikiki.

The annual Ho'olaule'a will be held on March 14.  Our class will need at least six volunteer parents to take our students around the Ho'olaule'a. Each student will purchase lunch, play games, and have a fun time. To make it safe, we need the parents to take small groups around the high school campus for all the festivities. We will begin at 11:00 AM and end at 1:30 PM. If you are able to come and help us supervise our students, please send me a note next week. In today's Thursday packet, you will receive information about Ho'olaule'a and an order form for purchasing scrip and t-shirts. I hope many of you can join us.

The vocabulary lists for this week have also been well done with word meanings stated clearly, sentences written with details, and pictures drawn with sufficient detail to make them meaningful. Our language arts work has concentrated on adverbs, adjectives, and prepositions this week, and it has been challenging for most of the class.

Our math continues to challenge us with problems about perimeters of polygons and areas of polygons with more than four sides. Triangles and quadrilaterals were fun to work with, and we did several exercises using combinations of as many as twelve figures to create new images.

Our daily reading is fun, and most are reading several chapters in class. The Reading Log entries include more specific details, and some of the responses are very creative. Everyone is doing a very good job of stating their understanding of what they have read daily.

Our writing is enjoyable, and everyone has been writing poems and personal narratives this week.  We will continue to publish our favorite stories as time permits. Because it takes about two weeks to publish a story, the Manoa Mountains are taking turns using the computers for this task.

Our next project which is due for presentation is the book report for February 25th. We will begin at 10:00 AM and invite all parents and grandparents to attend.  The children love to have an audience for their presentations.

"Jump Rope for Heart" will be held tomorrow afternoon from 12:30 - 2:00 PM at the gym.  Many thanks to everyone for sending in the permission slips on time and making such generous donations. I'm sure we will all enjoy this special activity. Many of the students are honoring their grandparents by jumping rope for them.

Our math lessons have been challenging and fun. The third graders are working with perimeters, angles, and areas. Their polygon-building kits, made of different lengths of straws which the children will cut up, will enable them to create various sizes and types of polygons. We will also compare different types of triangles and quadrilaterals.

Test-taking preparations have involved the use of workbooks to familiarize the students with test-taking questions and a multiple choice format. They are doing a good job on their work. The third graders are also working on their D'Nealian Handwriting books to practice cursive writing.

Reading Log entries are getting better and better with more details and information about the characters. The clarity of the writing has improved, as everyone has taken the time to do a thorough job on the summaries and responses.  Drawings are becoming more detailed, too.

Now that everyone has brought their earphones to school, their Garageband compositions for music class are really taking off. They are learning to do some complex music composition.

Today we had the pleasure of celebrating the Chinese New Year of the Rat with a Chinese lion dance. The students all gave the lion a red envelope filled with four quarters as an offering so that they would receive good luck for the coming year.

The next project which is due for presentation is the book report, which everyone should be working on. The presentations will be on Monday, February 25, in our classroom beginning at 10:00 AM. We are hoping that many parents and grandparents will be able to join us for this sharing of projects.

Please turn in the "Jump Rope for Heart" permission forms and donation envelopes as soon as possible. The event will be held next Friday in the gym and should be lots of fun for everyone! We still need volunteers to help out at the event. We will be at the gym from 12:30 - 2:00 PM.

Everyone should be working on their next book report project, which will be due for presentation on Monday,  February 25, at 10:00 AM. We are looking forward to some creative visual aids and speeches. The Reading Log entries have become more detailed, so there is lots of information to choose from to prepare these projects.

Our math work is progressing nicely, and the fourth graders have brought home their Unit 3 work. The third graders will bring their Unit 3 work home next week after all their corrections are completed. They are enjoying working with perimeter, angles, and area. Yesterday they created a seven-square-unit figure with squares and two different sizes of triangles. They are continuing to solve story problems to challenge their thinking.

The "Jump Rope for Heart" permission forms are due soon, so I would appreciate it very much if everyone can turn it in early. We need lots of parent volunteers to help for this event, too.

Everyone is doing a great job on their Literature Circle and vocabulary work every day. The stories for Literature Circle have been challenging in content, as we have worked with longer legends about Kauai.  The vocabulary words come from the stories and help everyone to learn their meanings.

We are entering a poetry contest sponsored by the Honolulu Theatre for Youth and Starbucks, so everyone has written their thoughts about maintaining a healthy diet.  They have been discussing ways to be healthy in PE class, so their ideas are very important to them.

Now that we have begun test preparations, the third graders are working on their Test Achiever books and D'Nealian handwriting books every week.  The fourth graders will use their Test Achiever books and Scoring Higher to help them prepare for the SAT tests in April.
   

The Manoa Mountains are working very hard on their stories and poems for Writer's Workshop. They will be publishing their work on the computers in the weeks ahead. The editing process takes some time, and we are all making revisions to our work to make it the best that it can be. Reports about the HTY play entitled "Maui vs. Hercules" were detailed and well written. The play was enjoyed by everyone, and the humor was particularly appreciated.

Math work continues with the third and fourth graders finishing up their corrections on Unit 3 work and moving on to the next unit. The third graders are having fun exploring perimeters, angles, and area. When all the Unit 3 corrections have been completed, the work will be sent home.

Today we had the pleasure of hearing James Rumford read his book Kahalaopuna at our assembly.  It is the story being used for the opera that the whole school will  be performing in May. It was very interesting and enjoyable.

We also honored Mr. Samuel Haga, who is the oldest living alumnus of MPI.  He celebrated his 106th birthday this year! Our class made birthday cards for him, and we presented them at the assembly.

Our next project is a book report, which is due for presentation on Monday, February 25, at 10:00 AM in the classroom. Students should be preparing their speeches and visual aids for this project.

Camp Erdman provided our Manoa Mountains with many interesting and exciting experiences to help them learn about environmental issues and do some hands-on science investigations. The Group Challenge was great for team-building and everyone enjoyed the Olympic relays. Every group was a winner!