Tales Of A 4-5 Something

During one of the winter storms we heard about a bunch of friends getting together to make lunches to give out to the homeless. My mom thought that would be a nice thing to do so she wanted to do one. She called some friends and we helped. We came together and we worked in small groups. One group made sandwiches. Another group wrote nice notes to put in the bag. Some others added fruit and veggies. Tea bags and a dessert also went into the bag. All the supplies came from the families who put the bags together. After the bags were made we went to the park next to the Eastland Hotel. We handed out the bags to people. Some people went and walked around town and handed out the lunches. We also went to Deering Oaks. It felt really good to do it and we met some pretty cool people. One person even signed "I love you" after they got a lunch. Veera and Lolie

We have five weeks before April break. That means we have five more weeks to collect money for the penny drive. We have collected $474 so far!  Earlier this month we went to Wayside Food Program and we saw their kitchen and heard about how they store the food. We also got to walk into their huge freezer. It was 5 degrees!  Volunteers come in to cook meals that get shipped to other places. They also have a huge storehouse that is really cold. Groups from other organizations come and take the food they need to fill their shelves. Wayside helps way more people than we ever thought! I think we will be able to raise more than $500 before break! Do you think we can do it? Henry H

This week we started a dance unit with Elicia in PE. The 5th graders are learning the cha cha and the 4th graders are doing line dancing. It is repeating the same steps. We think it is fun that we learn a dance in 5th grade and that we get to perform at Pachanga! The 4th graders are going to learn three different line dances. We are having fun. We learned a lot during our first few classes from Patty and Elicia. Patty is a dance teacher that comes in to help us. Elicia recorded us as we tried out the steps. Here is the video.  Grace, Olivia, Ty, Tobias, and Josef.

We are doing a donation to the AWS Animal Shelter. We made a poster and put it in a box in the hallway in 4-5. We wanted to do this because we visited the shelter and they told us that they needed some donations so we thought we could help them. Some of the things that they most need are cat and kitten food, dog and puppy food, peanut butter, catnip, paper towels, tennis balls and dog and cat toys. The animals there would be grateful for anything you bring in. Please add items to our box! Iris and Mia

Global Focus is one week of the year where the whole Lower School studies one country of the world. 4-5 does starts earlier so we do one month and then enjoy one major week with the rest of the Lower School.  This year we’re studying New Zealand. Some of the things we've done include cooking! We made kiwi bread, coconut soup and fruit salad with kiwi. We have also made mince lamb pies, settlers pie, sweet potato cakes, and ginger crunch.  We’ve also had some guest speakers! Martha and John came in twice. They taught us where really cool caves are and guess what? Some of the beaches in New Zealand have black sand that the Japanese take and turn into steel. We have also had visits from Ciccone who has been here every day to teach us language. Patrick shared a lot about the birds of New Zealand and Emily told us about her visit to all the beautiful sites.  Did you know that New Zealand is thinking about changing their flag because it looks to much like the Austr...

Tu Rakau is a song and when people sing it they hit the Lummi sticks together to make the rhythm. We made the sticks in class and learned the song and steps in PE. We decorated the sticks using sharpie markers and we used designs from Maori art. It was fun learning this with Elicia. It was loud but fun hearing and seeing all the sticks moving. Isabella, Alden W., Elijah We made Lummi sticks last week. Lummi sticks are long circular wooden sticks that are made for playing games. We got to sandpaper them and then used sharpie to decorate them. After a long time of decorating we finally got to play the game in PE. The whole thing was lots of fun!

John and Martha came all the way from New Zealand to talk with us. They taught us a lot of things about New Zealand. We learned about what children wear and how big the caves are. They also taught us a song. Here is a video of us practicing the song. Be careful, it can get stuck in your head.