Global Awareness Station

We have added another new station to our Exploration Station rotations for the next few weeks. It is called the Global Awareness station. It contains artifacts from Australia and China for the crew to explore. There are also several engaging activities for them to try including: using chopsticks, writing Chinese characters, painting Chinese characters using water on small chalkboards, sorting Australian coins or animals cards and many more. The crew is enjoying this station and learning so much while they "play".

Homework ~ Read a good book or two. Check out a Bedtime Math story.

Service Learning

We currently have three service learning projects that we are working on. I thought I would give a little more detail about each one.

Adopt a Family - Our crew voted to adopt a family in need of some extra help this holiday season. We are purchasing gifts for them, wrapping them and tagging them with a special code. Then Ms. Allison, our social worker, will deliver them. If you would like to help your child participate in this event, check out our sign up at the link below. While we are providing a service for those in need, we are learning about how to kindly help others in a non-intrusive way.

Adopt a Family Holiday Gifts

Connecting with Australia - This project really supports our learning and the learning of the students in Mrs. Price's class in Australia. We are teaching each other about the similarities and differences in our ways of life. We are learning to appreciate different ways of doing things. We are learning to listen carefully to someone with an accent that is different from ours. We were surprised to learn that Mrs. Price's class thinks we have accents, too. We are learning to be more globally aware and make genuine connections with other people from around the world.


Smile Project - Our crew created some small posters with motivational sayings on them. Some examples include: Smile, We can do hard things, Breathe, Ta-Da (ask your child to explain this one) and more. We are randomly going to various classrooms and areas of our school and holding these signs up to encourage others to smile, work hard or have a better day. 

I am sure other projects will come up as the year continues. We will keep you posted!

Homework ~ Read a good book or two. Check out a Bedtime Math story.

News from Australia

Regina is home now and the new school year has started in Australia. Regina did a presentation for her whole school about her trip to the United States. It was so nice to meet her and learn more about her trip around the United States and her home country of Australia. I still can't believe that a little chat on Twitter between Mrs. Price and myself started all of this!

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ 6.12 Analyzing a Set of Data

Global Awareness

One of the 21st Century Skills that we want all students to have is global awareness. We have had many experiences that have helped us increase our global awareness. Below is a list of some of those experiences:

• Skyping and tweeting with Mrs. Price's Prep/1 class from Jindivick, Victoria, Australia
• Each of us having a friend in Australia that we feel personally connected to
• Visiting Joyous Chinese Cultural Center to meet people who were born in China and to learn more about Chinese culture
• Doing an in-depth study of families in China including topics like foods, celebrations, schools, hobbies, shopping, daily life in cities and villages, languages and more
• Learning a little bit about the differences in time zones between various places in the world. The crew was fascinated to learn that people in Australia and China are still sleeping when we get to school in the morning. It was also interesting to learn that when we Skype Mrs. Price's class on a Monday afternoon just before the end of our school day that they are just arriving at school for the start of school on Tuesday morning there.
• We are learning to be accepting of differences in accents, skin color, language usage, personal beliefs and more.
• Locating various places (China, Australia, Mexico, Florida, Idaho, etc.) on a map or globe and noticing where those places are in relation to us.
• Grappling with the idea that there are many ways to live in our world - farms, apartments, houses, house boats, huts, etc.
• We spent a while discussing whether everyone in the world speaks English or not.
• We learned that money looks different all around the world
• We have learned a few words of Mandarin Chinese, Spanish and Sign Language

These are just a few of the ways that we are trying to become more globally aware. This age is wonderful to explore these topics because they are so willing to be open to new cultures and ideas.

They are also very willing to share our culture with others. Mrs. Price's class has learned so much from our crew, too.

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Practice basic addition or subtraction facts.

Important Dates
12/19 Fieldwork to Pacific Ocean Market and King's Land Restaurant
12/22 - 1/5 Winter Break
1/6 First day back after Winter Break
1/16 No School - Professional Development Day for Teachers
1/19 No School - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
2/13 No School - Professional Development Day for Teachers
2/16 No School - President's Day
2/26 Winter Voyage ~ Day 1 - not an overnight trip (Day 2 will be in April - also not an overnight trip)
3/23 - 4/3 Spring Break

Here We Are in Australia...

Okay, not really, but here are some photos of what our recent Skype session with Mrs. Price's class looked like in Australia. It is interesting to see the Skype session from a different angle. Hopefully you saw the post on Monday about meeting our buddies. Tomorrow the crew will get bookmarks with a picture of their buddy on it. (Thanks, Mrs. Price for the idea.) Then next week we will Skype with them again in smaller groups so that we can really try to have a conversation with them now that we have "met". This is a great way to learn about another culture and see things from a different perspective.