Manoa Senior Care visit and Writers’ Luncheon this week!

Kindergarten and Fifth Grade buddies will be meeting their adopted grandparents at Manoa Senior Care this Thursday. They’ve been working very hard on their Halloween stories for the past two weeks. Buddies worked together to compose the story. Fifth Grade buddies helped the kindergartners with spelling and grammar and made sure that the stories all had a beginning, middle, and end. They also typed and formatted the stories on the computer. After the stories were printed, kindergartners (sometimes with their buddies) illustrated them. We’re all excited to meet our “new” grandparents and share our stories with them! Look for pictures to be posted on the K-Hoddick weblog this week.

You should be receiving an invitation to our first Writers’ Luncheon this Friday. Some students finished their invitation last week and gave them to you already. The rest of the invitations should be going home this Monday or Tuesday. We hope that you’ll be able to attend this informal luncheon and sharing of poetry (haiku, odes). If you can't attend this luncheon, there will be another one on December 8 (and two more next semester). All students are required to participate in at least one luncheon per semester.

Requirements for the second Independent Book Projects were sent home today. Next week, we’ll discuss the rubric that is being compiled from the students’ comments of the first presentations.

Our field trip to the East-West Center last week was excellent! Dr. Michael Schuster met with both classes on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week to educate us on the Yup’ik Eskimo culture. We saw a video of Yup’ik dances and saw the environment in which they live (in Alaska). We also had a chance to see the intricate crafts made by the Yup’ik people. Throughout everything we saw, we learned that animals play an important role in the culture. At the end of our visit, we received a booklet that explained a lot of the culture’s beliefs and how they live on a daily basis. On Thursday, we “debriefed.” We began by reflecting on the Yup’ik culture. “What can you say about the Yup’ik culture? Give a one word or short phrase to describe the culture.” One class came up with: hard-working, diligent, smart, traditional, respectful, thankful/grateful, purposeful, and cooperative. Then we asked, “What can you say about our culture?” Interestingly, they came up with: selfish, democratic, wasteful, defensive, and team workers. The teachers realized that we had labeled our culture “American.” Then a student brought up the point that if the Yup’ik people live in Alaska, then they’re American, too. So we asked the question, “What [specific] group were you thinking of when you gave these descriptions?” The class shared -- the other 49 states, MPI, present day people in Hawaii, and me.

The second class listed characteristics of Americans quite similar to those they listed of the Yup’ik culture with a few exceptions: patriotic, careless, helpful, respectful, religious, giving, hard-working, encouraging, fair, mean, bossy, thoughtless, obedient, disobedient, and selfless. They had said the Yup'ik are hard-working, proud, artistic, athletic, patient, open to new ideas, peaceful, thankful/grateful, and respectful.

We would like to continue the discussion about the similarities and differences between these two cultures. It will be interesting to know why such statements were made. What experiences or knowledge helped us to form those opinions?

The exhibit is on through November 8, so if you get a chance, we highly recommend you making a visit. The EWC is open daily. Call for available times.

This week, the students will enjoy hearing [informal] reports from their classmates and also a presentation from a Samoan-American family. The task before the students now is to compare the culture they researched to four different cultures - Yup’ik, Samoan, and two from their classmates. A handout explaining this task was handed out today.

Reminder: The 5th grade teachers are available after school to help the children with homework and projects. We encourage the students to ask questions and to use the time we’re offering for help. I suggest making 3:00 a regular pick-up time (unless, of course, there are afterschool activities that are taking place). Your child can meet you in the turn-around area in front of Wilcox.

Thank you to again to Mrs. Meyer for providing supplies for a fun Halloween craft activity that the 5th grade and Kindergarten buddies can share with their adopted grandparents. Some 5th grade students were able to join the few Kindergarten buddies remaining after their field trip for Center time on Friday. One of the centers was to glue green pom-poms onto orange painted tennis balls (jack-o-l-anterns). Hopefully the buddies will be able to get together this week to “paint” faces onto the jack-o-lanterns.