January 31, 2014

Kung hei fat choy! Happy Chinese New Years! Welcome to the year of the horse. In honor of Chinese New Years we learned about China during social studies. Did you know that China is home to more than one billion of the worlds population? We learned where China was on world map, how to say "hello" and "good bye", and even how to write in Chinese! We decorated our class with the Chinese symbol "Fu" which in English means "good luck" or "good fortune". In China, people put these symbols on the top of their door way to help bring good fortune and luck into their household.

This week we also learned about Sea Turtles. Did you know that even though there are 300 different types of turtles, there are only 8 species of sea turtles? We've been learning about all eight of them: the Kemp's Ridley, the Olive Ridley, the Hawksbill, the Flatback, the Black seat turtle, the Loggerhead, the Green Sea Turtle, and the Leatherback. We are now starting to make another informational book all about sea turtles! Here are some samples of what we are working on:

"A leatherback is a sea turtle. It has no shell."

We hope everyone has a fun-filled weekend. Also as a reminder, if you haven't already done so, please don't forget to turn in your child's permission form, along with $4.50, before February 7th. See you on Monday!

PS - we would like to congratulate Mahealani and Doris for winning CARE kids this week for Kindergarten. Great job girls!

January 24, 2014

Aloha Parents and Families! We had such a fun-filled week. Last week we read a book called "Making Butter" by M.C. Hall. The book was a step-by-step book on how to make butter. The students enjoyed reading the book and began to get curious if these steps actually worked, so on Tuesday we put it to the test! Ms. Jennings brought all of the ingredients, as listed in the book, to school which included: heavy whipping cream and salt (and of course a jar to put our butter in).

Next, we took turns reading each page, and as one student read, the rest of us followed the directions.  We first had to fill the jar up half way with heavy whipping cream. Next, we added just a pinch of salt. Lastly, we each had to shake the jar as hard as we could (10 minutes). Finally, we opened our jar and...

We made butter! We then got to spread our butter on a small cornbread muffin and eat it as a snack. It was delicious!

For writing this week, we each created our own informational book on "The Coral Reef". We created a title page, table of contents, "Things in a Coral Reef" page, "Parts of a Puffer Fish" page, and "Fun Facts" page. Here's some pages from Marianne's book:

"The clown fish lives in the coral reef. It hides in the tentacles to protect him."

Finally, on Friday afternoon we earned a Recess Party (by filling our classroom marble jar)! We had so much fun getting a chance to play on the F Field's play structure, shoots hoops, and draw with sidewalk chalk.

We would also like to recognize and congratulate Emma and Halia! They won "CARE Kid" this week for Kindergarten. Way to go girls!

We hope everyone has a great weekend. See you on Monday!

January 17th, 2014

This week in P2 we learned about the essence of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. It began Friday when I brought a white egg to school and our neighbor teacher in P1, Ms. Encarnacao, brought a brown egg to school. All day long we would mention to the kids that each of our eggs was the best. At the end of the day we combined our classes so that we could resolve this "dispute". 

We asked the kids to help us settle this once and for all, guiding them with the question, "Well, what is the most important part of the egg?" Of course the kids replied that it is the inside that is the most important because that is the part that we eat. It was then decided that we would judge which egg is best by the insides. As you can guess, when we broke our eggs open we discovered that they are exactly the same on the inside. Once opened we could no longer tell which egg was which. 

Finally, we combined our yolks in to one container to model how through Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's dream we no longer are separated by the color of our skin, but can live in unity and friendship with one another.