Letters from Japan, Mats for Haiti, Filk Citations and Medieval Sims
Keeping Busy.
- My students are currently involved in a penpal exchange with a class of students from Japan. One of our teacher's son (who I taught in Gr. 2!) is now teaching in Japan and he initiated the exchange. It's kind of haunting that the first penpal letters we recieved from Osaka a month back (and are presently answering) were dated March 3, 2011, eight days before the earthquake and the tsunami took place. We can only hope and assume Osaka was far enough away from the earthquake zone that these students weren't directly affected, though no doubt they have family, friends and fellow country folk who were :(. The students who wrote to my class are slightly older than they are because they are in their first year of learning English. The letters we recieved are -gorgeous-. The printing is perfect and the illustrations make each letter a work of art. I've told my students they are to aim for the same care to the writing and artwork they will send in return. It's proving to be a very meaningful project.
- We've also started another school project affected by a recent earthquake. There's a woman in Richmond Hill here who along with women in her church makes these really nifty ground mats crocheted out of plastic milk bags, which are then sent to Haiti. She goes to schools and gets students to bring in their milk bags and then cut them up and tie the strips together and roll them into balls. There is a lunchtime workshop next week where she will come back in to teach interested teachers how to crochet the mats from the plastic knitting balls. The finished mats are surprisingly sturdy and soft. She also explained that they don't have to pay any shipping to get the mats to Haiti as they use the mats to cushion delicate medical supplies that are being sent in the same crates. Quite a cool project. The mats end up looking like this.
- The kids are also very pysched up for next Thursday, when the Gr. 7/8 students are having a 1980's lip-sync competition :). It promises to be a full-blown multi-media event where the competing students will pick an 80's song, dress like that singer and then perform and dance to one of their songs. I've been asked to be one of the judges for the competition, heaven help me :). They say it's because I have a musical background, but I can't say my knowledge of 80's music is all that strong! John's coming in to record and edit the show for a DVD that the students will be able to buy.
- I have become sadly addicted to The Sims Medieval. Oh my goodness, you can lose hours playing this game. Tons of fun and frustrating, too, as you try to figure out how to solve the quests! A perfect background to the Medival Times social studies unit I just started in class :). Next big school project- starting to work my class toward their Medieval Festival in early June.
- I'm pleased and proud to see that Urban Tapestry's written citation from our induction into the Filk Hall of Fame is now on-line. You can read it here. Thanks to the FilKONtario web guru- it's Sue, isn't it?- for work on the Filk Hall of Fame page. Please correct me if I'm wrong! Also, if you want some insight into the heart and soul of what brings us to filk and keeps us there, I strongly recommend you read the other citations on-line. And then if you're a filker and you're inspired, I'd strongly encourage you to write a nomination for more worthy filkers to have the amazing experience we had at FKO this year.
- Watched the DVD of "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows-Part 1" last night. Very much looking forward to Part 2 in July!
- And I cried happy tears watching this first blog entry from the set of The Hobbit yesterday. We're going back to Middle-earth! Yay!!
Think I'll go back to "Medieval Sims" for bit now while I do laundry...
- My students are currently involved in a penpal exchange with a class of students from Japan. One of our teacher's son (who I taught in Gr. 2!) is now teaching in Japan and he initiated the exchange. It's kind of haunting that the first penpal letters we recieved from Osaka a month back (and are presently answering) were dated March 3, 2011, eight days before the earthquake and the tsunami took place. We can only hope and assume Osaka was far enough away from the earthquake zone that these students weren't directly affected, though no doubt they have family, friends and fellow country folk who were :(. The students who wrote to my class are slightly older than they are because they are in their first year of learning English. The letters we recieved are -gorgeous-. The printing is perfect and the illustrations make each letter a work of art. I've told my students they are to aim for the same care to the writing and artwork they will send in return. It's proving to be a very meaningful project.
- We've also started another school project affected by a recent earthquake. There's a woman in Richmond Hill here who along with women in her church makes these really nifty ground mats crocheted out of plastic milk bags, which are then sent to Haiti. She goes to schools and gets students to bring in their milk bags and then cut them up and tie the strips together and roll them into balls. There is a lunchtime workshop next week where she will come back in to teach interested teachers how to crochet the mats from the plastic knitting balls. The finished mats are surprisingly sturdy and soft. She also explained that they don't have to pay any shipping to get the mats to Haiti as they use the mats to cushion delicate medical supplies that are being sent in the same crates. Quite a cool project. The mats end up looking like this.
- The kids are also very pysched up for next Thursday, when the Gr. 7/8 students are having a 1980's lip-sync competition :). It promises to be a full-blown multi-media event where the competing students will pick an 80's song, dress like that singer and then perform and dance to one of their songs. I've been asked to be one of the judges for the competition, heaven help me :). They say it's because I have a musical background, but I can't say my knowledge of 80's music is all that strong! John's coming in to record and edit the show for a DVD that the students will be able to buy.
- I have become sadly addicted to The Sims Medieval. Oh my goodness, you can lose hours playing this game. Tons of fun and frustrating, too, as you try to figure out how to solve the quests! A perfect background to the Medival Times social studies unit I just started in class :). Next big school project- starting to work my class toward their Medieval Festival in early June.
- I'm pleased and proud to see that Urban Tapestry's written citation from our induction into the Filk Hall of Fame is now on-line. You can read it here. Thanks to the FilKONtario web guru- it's Sue, isn't it?- for work on the Filk Hall of Fame page. Please correct me if I'm wrong! Also, if you want some insight into the heart and soul of what brings us to filk and keeps us there, I strongly recommend you read the other citations on-line. And then if you're a filker and you're inspired, I'd strongly encourage you to write a nomination for more worthy filkers to have the amazing experience we had at FKO this year.
- Watched the DVD of "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows-Part 1" last night. Very much looking forward to Part 2 in July!
- And I cried happy tears watching this first blog entry from the set of The Hobbit yesterday. We're going back to Middle-earth! Yay!!
Think I'll go back to "Medieval Sims" for bit now while I do laundry...