Hi Parents

As your child may have told you, I am home sick with pneumonia and hope to return fully to class on Monday; the coughing just got too much and after two weeks of anti-biotics, the only thing I was missing was rest so on Doctor’s Orders, I am trying to get some (we working Mum’s are not so good on the ‘rest’ part.) Here are an assortment of notices for your attention. I’m sorry I will miss you, and your children, and my own daughter Hannah at tomorrow’s band and strings performance but from hearing 5KP practice, I know they will be wonderful. Now, onto the news…. Remember, Students should wear nice white shirt, black pants/skirt, black socks and shoes for tomorrow’s performance…

5^th Grade Band & Orchestra Winter Performance

Friday, November 18

2:00 PM

Auditorium

Parents and families of 5^th grade students are invited to our show! Please come early so you can also see the Art Show in the Foyer before hand where your child’s work is on display. Teachers will be taking down the artwork on Friday and Monday, but wanted to extend an invitation for you to take them home with you on Friday after the 5th Grade Band Performance.  It is a great opportunity to assure that your child’s work will make it home!  For the parents of the Pre-K thru Grade 2 students, you are welcome to come to room 219 to get your child’s portfolio.  They will be laid out on the tables by classrooms.

Giving Tree

Dear Friends,

I am writing to you tonight as the faculty advisor of the HS Giving Tree Club. With a few days to go before this year’s collection campaign winds up on Nov 22, we have reached the 360 bag mark, which puts us within reach of our goal of 540 bags, though we obviously still have a ways to go.

First, thanks for your generosity and support of this project, to the many of you who have donated money to sponsor children.

I know that some of you feel that a personal connection is lost when you don’t actually go out and fill a bag yourself. However, this year’s donation-based system also allows us to provide significant support to Home Sweet Home (another local charitable organization) by ordering clothing from them.

For those who have not yet contributed to this year’s Giving Tree project, and would like to, a contribution of RMB 200 provides a fleece jacket, hat, mittens, shoes, school supplies and a toy to a child in need here in Shanghai.

Many thanks,

Michael Chao
HS Math Teacher
Faculty sponsor, HS Giving Tree Club

Week Without Homework

Pudong Elementary will be having a NO HOMEWORK week from the 5th to the 9th of December. The purpose of this week is to provide families with a special opportunity to spend the time usually allocated to homework towards doing a variety of different activities together. Below you will find a list of possible activities that can be done throughout the week:

• Taking a walk together and talking about your day
• Cooking together
• Reading to each other
• Playing board games
• Giving your child jobs to do around the home i.e. setting the dinner table, taking the dogs for a walk, cleaning out their bedrooms
• Writing up the Santa’s Workshop wish list together
• Arts and crafts
• e-mailing family members-grandma’s grandpas
• Making a thankful (grateful) list- in 2 languages
• playing card games, Go Fish, Uno, build a card house-see how high it can go
• build a tent in the living room/dining with blankets and read with a flashlight inside
• Have your child/ren put on a show…Have them create their own costumes. Set a show time. Pop popcorn. Don’t forget to film it.
• Play hide and seek inside house/apartment.
• Take a photo every hour and do a photo journal of the day
• Play dress up and take pictures
• Going through toys and choosing some to donate to orphanages

Panda Book Awards

Ask your child about the meeting they had this morning regarding these awards and read about them here on our Library Blog

Information for the Students for Friday’s Lessons -Work on the following, Friday Periods 1 and 4.

We have begun to look at the African country of Sudan where, as we have discovered, “Political Migration” happens on a very large scale. We are reading about Sudan in our Read-A-Loud about the Sudanese Refugee Kek, “Home of the Brave” and also as we look at the Video Clips taken from the film “God Grew Tired of Us”.

We will watch the following four clips from National Geographic.

From Southern Sudan to Northeastern United States. (Sudan’s civil war forced over 25,000 Lost Boys to trek across sub-Saharan Africa in search of safety. Hear their stories from Kakuma Refugee camp.)

Sense of Place and Community (In America, the Lost Boys reflect on the culture they left behind and reminisce about life back in Sudan.)

Cultural Differences (Watch as the Lost Boys experience for the first time what most American’s take for granted and as they gain valuable insight on American ‘norms.’)

Responsibility and Leadership (Now a grown man living in the United States, John Dau helps his friends and family back home, and raises awareness in America about Sudan.)

Your task is to…

Complete a new blog post with the title “Lost boys of Sudan” and answer the following 3 questions that are in bold below. Feel free to watch the clips again if you feel that you have missed something or need more information to answer the questions.

• What have you learned about Dinka culture? What values do the Lost Boys hold? How do those values compare with your own?

• What questions and fears do the Lost Boys have about life in the U.S.? What questions and fears would you have if you were moving to a new place? What differences do you see between Dinka culture and American culture? What are some of the challenges the Lost Boys encounter? How do they adapt to life in the United States?

• What sense of responsibility do the Lost Boys feel toward each other and toward their families and friends still in Africa? In what ways are they trying to improve their own lives and those of their families and friends?
• Answer your questions in complete sentences so your audience feel like they understand more about the Dinka culture and the struggle these people have been through.

Remember your final project for this unit will be to:

Create a slideshow of at least 10 photos, and record your voice narrating the timeline of a relatives life.

Interview a relative and create a timeline of their life. This timeline will require a short narrative for each of their moves. Write down in advance when the person migrated and why.  I will be your script for when you record your soundtrack.
For example:

Timeline of Simon Power
1973
A beautiful baby boy was born in Geelong. Two happy parents named
Shirley and Michael Power gave birth to Simon, in Geelong Hospital on the 10th of April.
He would live in my first house until the age of 6.
1979
Simon moved 2 kilometers to the house he would spend the next 13 years in. It was this house that
he remembered  the wonderful bedroom he had and his favorite friend, a dog named Taffy.
Taffy would spend all of the her 12 years living at the same house as Simon…

Have a look at Cooper Parham’s to see an example of the finished product. Mr Power will be in on Friday at 12.30 to help you with this, but it is what I want you working through first two period’s Friday so that you are making progress.

Parents it would be good for you to look at some of the finished products of the Migration Unit too, by going to Ms Rekate’s blog and clicking on any of the students on her blogroll. This will help you know where the students are heading, we hope to have them reach this stage by November 22nd. They have been collecting photos and writing up the interviews they did with family members so they are almost there…

That’s All Folks…