Malcolm X Celebrates National Women’s History Month with Five Plays

I'm so proud to be part of this amazing school community! Not only do the kids get a chance to be part of a theatrical production, but they get to learn about great woman in history while doing it. I love the diversity of the woman picked for the 5 productions and I even got to learn something as I'd not heard about Wangari or the inception of bloomers! I love that we live in a diverse community that teaches kids to fight for what they believe in and accept all people, the story of Wilma Rudolph (the play Holly was in) helped give her the determination and bravery to stand up to the BUSD school board last week.. I'm so grateful for the teachers, and parents.. And so proud of the kids...

Below is the press release from the district information officer and links to photo's and video of the plays

--

Malcolm X Elementary School 2^nd graders performed five short plays on "Women Who've Changed the World" telling the stories of Dolores Huerta, Amelia Bloomer, Wilma Rudolph, Helen Keller, and Wangari Maathai. Their amazing script was based on stories taken from books about these courageous women, and transformed into theater by Malcolm X’s own drama teacher, Mariah Castle. The 5^th grade Drama Club filled in as stage crew, and helped to insure a seamless production. The students were well prepared for their roles and articulately executed their lines in two assemblies and an evening performance for the parents.

Check out video of “Women Who've Changed the World” and enjoy photos of the production.

M X 2nd Graders - Women Who've Changed the World Photos:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/53901376@N04/albums/72157665885842372

M X 2nd Graders - Women Who've Changed the World Video:  https://vimeo.com/159453974

Spring Choral

Last week Holly's school had a Spring Choral with the k-3rd graders.  It was a morning performance, so in spite of being up till 4:00 am with Lyra I wanted to take Holly to school and see the show.  

It was nice being up in the morning with Holly, getting ready, eating breakfast, and fun to take her to school.  Though it wasn't the normal morning routine, it was school seeing her classmates.  Before the show some kids ate breakfast, Holly decided to color.

The kids had been practicing for a few weeks learning the four songs they would sing, not only the words but the hand gestures too.  Those I think really help the kids learn the songs, matching the motion with the words makes it easier to remember.

Holly has been telling me about the rehearsals all week and the day before after each grade practiced they all got to stay to watch the older kids preform their songs.  Holly was excited to see a girl in first grade who recently presented her with a book she wrote, and some new first grade friends she met in her Wednesday fairy tale dance class.  She also got to see her 3rd grade reading buddy preform.

It was nice for the kids to watch each other during rehearsals, as the auditorium was filled with parents on performance day.  

Each grade sang 4 songs.  The kindergarteners were so sweet.  Every grade sang "This Land is your land" and as the kids got older their versions became more elaborate the older kids had more verses and their singing was much more melodic and in harmony.  It was cool so see how they would get better as they got older.

The first graders sand one song where each line grew on the last so in the end the sun fed the weed that fed the snail that fed the eel that fed the shark ect..ect.. They had signs for the word in each phrase and by the end had kids holding up all 7 I think,of course these were tto help them remember all the words.  Later the third graders sang a similar song but knew all the words with no prompts, very impressive.  It was a super fun morning.

Here are videos of the songs the kindergarteners sang:

This land is your land:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7yq9xt8I6U

Mr. Moon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvhQvBL7HjY

Oats and beans and barley grow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou9tc8nyEE0

Four Seasons:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3gtqDwByc0

And finally after their last bow each Kindergardener class exits / this video is fun for Holly to watch because she gets to see every kindergardener as they walk by.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F3J3xOoTL0

100 Days Project - A reflection

Today was Holly's 100th day of school.  We have been spending the last two weeks working on her project.  

We decided to create a garden using 5 colored groups of 20 straws for the stems and 10 groups of ten colored tissue paper for the flower tops.  Each night we would commit to making a set of ten flowers and slowly over the last two weeks grew it too 100.

While the project I am assuming was meant to teach the kids about Math, groups, sets, counting, adding, ect it caused me to be rather reflective of time going by.

While today marks the 100th school day it has been 167 actual days since Holly started school - this seems like a life time ago - but - tomorrow Lyra will be 11 weeks old, that's 77 days since she was born and that seems like yesterday! Tonight she is 9lb 3oz almost double the weight she was when she came home - 5lbs 8oz yet she is only a pound heavier then when Holly was born...

Then there is Holly's growth, though she is probably only 3lbs heavier and maybe an inch taller she seems like a different child... In the last 100 days of school she has begun to read and write!

She completes a daily journal at school with actual sentences describing her weekend activities and pictures of parties and gardens and princesses.  She can write all her letters and even read simple books she has many many site words.  And as illustrated by the 100 day project she knows 50+50 is 100 or if we plan to complete 10 flowers a night and we have already done 7 we only need 3 more.

I reflect back further to last year at this time when we were touring kindergarten classes. I remember seeing the kids journals and artwork, hearing them count by 10's to 100 in circle time and thinking my kid will never be able to do this in just a year.

Fast forward to only 5 months ago when kindergarten was starting, my kid still couldn't begin to do any of those things, let alone sit in circle for more then 5 minutes or at the table for 10.  I was worried she might not make it through the first day of school.

Yet here we are 100 days in and I am amazed by all she has learned and all she can do and she is so independent and grown up too.  She learns about history, and landforms, plants and marine animals, she listens and answers questions, she reads and she writes and though on some nights these past two weeks it was a chore getting enough focus to get through ten whole flowers or figuring out number bonds and writing our weekly book reports she has come so far.  

I am amazed by all she has accomplished in Only 100 days of school.  And while she thinks it's a very big number and really can't discern it from a million in my almost 14,000 days of life I know it's such a drop in the bucket. So while it on one hand seems like a life time ago, when I look at the other hand it seems like just yesterday she was that 9lb baby only 77 days old... But no in just 1 month she will be my 6yr old and she will have over 2000 days under her belt.

100 straws

A description 

Ms. Kai's Daily message

Lionel's 100 candies

Holly looking around

100 googly eyes

100 Lego houses

100 cards

100 pieces of sea glass

100 popcorns - love the display

With over 100 kindergardeners

There were more then 100 displays to look at

100 things older the 100

By Boone 

This was great - 100 doggy treats

Oh and 100 pop cycle sticks

But each with the name of 1 kindergardener

100 bones

And 100 nails to make a giant fish

100 rocks

And 100 pine cones!

The projects were all so creative!

Here is Holly working on hers

While having a sleep over at Tanta Kat's!

I hope the next 100 days of school will be as great as the last!  Thank you Mslcolm X and especially Ms. Kai 

Apple Pie

Well, hello there! This is a guest post from Daddy, I've been putting off writing it for a while but here goes. Last fall, before Thanksgiving, I had the chance to volunteer in Holly's kindergarten classroom to help the kids make apple pie. They were doing a whole unit studying apples, learning the parts of the trees and the different things you can do with apples. 

As a prelude to this, I had volunteered a few weeks before to help peel and slice apples into applesause and dried apples. There's a previous blog post with details of the crazy apple-peeler contraption they had. It was so amazing I ordered one for myself, the kids loved it. And nobody sliced off any fingers! That went so well that I was able to be convinced to volunteer for making pie -- after all, the previous task: mash up the apple slices and drop them into crock pot was practically the same thing as making pie crust from scratch, filling and still prepping all the apples, right? How hard could it be?

We worked in the back of the room. Meanwhile, the class went through their daily circle time routine, which involves reading a daily message from the board.

Morning Circle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpbAf4Rarak

Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJoLuhZ7910

Meanwhile, we manned the pie making stations. We split it into two tables, Vicki helped with the slicing and peeling contraption, and the filling, and I supervised the crust-making table. 

The kids did great, we did everything from scratch. Even though here I am showing them how to measure, they did all the measuring and scooping themselves. 

The pastry blender in particular was a hit, the kids loved mashing the butter into the flour. They were a little reluctant to mush the flour and butter together with their hands but they got into it.

Penelope was a pro, she knew how to measure and level off the sugar for the filling without even being shown. 

The kids also really liked the rolling pin, I think they all had some experience with rolling out play doh. 

Finally, the big finish, dumping the filling mixture into the pie crust. This was pretty much the only part that I did myself, the rest of it was the kids.

The pie came together beautifully, and the kids were very excited about the whole thing. I think they all got to participate, too, and everyone had a good time.

Mrs. Kai took the pie home and baked it overnight. She sent us this picture of the whole class enjoying the pie the next morning. Holly is off on her own in the back -- she decided she just likes making pies but not eating them.

We had a lot of fun and the kids enjoyed it. Their next study unit is on marine mammals, so I'm looking around for some recipes involving sea lions or something. Curried walrus?

Starting Kindergarten

Here is Holly during the first day of Kindergarten,  She is such a big girl!  She is excited to go to school, super happy and only a little bit nervous.  We headed over to school and Holly was assigned to the green group.  Each of the first 3 days of school Holly would be in a different class with a different teacher.  There are 5 new Kindergarten classes starting, so two of the days she would be with 2 teachers so everyone had a chance to meet everybody.  The kids would rotate together but on the first day of school the next week she would be assigned her official teacher and class, so it might be some of the same kids, but a mix of any of the 100 new kids starting.

While we generally don;t get much of a say in this decision making process, I did let Holly's case worker know which teacher's she liked the best and which student's she mentioned playing with.  One of the first three days she had a bad day and didn't really get along with the style of that teacher, so I did mention that was the bottom of the list.  The teacher she initially liked the best made her laugh the entire day, which I think in the long run would have been very disruptive.  Ms. Kai, the teacher she was assigned was actually a wonderful match.  She is nurturing in a reserved way, and very calming, but open to the classroom exuberance.  I think she is a calming and gentle influence on Holly and works well to balance out her hyperactivity.

Of the kids she most bonded with from the green group or any of the kids that she had summer play dates with, none were assigned with her to Ms. Kai's class.  That made me very nervous for starting school the next week.  But she had been a trouper, and was eager to return to school and meet all of her new friends.  Since starting school we have had a few bumps but mostly ups and Holly loves school, her teacher, and her class.

Here is a video from her first day.

First Day in Ms Kai's Class
http://youtu.be/6Fiss2QbkEs
After gentle beginnings Holly is assigned to Ms. Kai's class.  This is her first day in her new and official class.