To conclude our theme on community helpers, we got a visit from the Honolulu Sheriffs and the K-9 Unit.  They taught us about their job and what they do to help us.  They also taught us about gun safety.  Their K-9 unit demonstrated how they work by searching for a toy hidden in a suitcase next to two other suitcases.  We even got to pet Rico, the German Shepherd!

We enjoyed learning about different community helpers!  We especially loved getting a real experience with each kind, which helps us have a more concrete understanding when we get to engage in what we’re learning about!

This week, we continued our community helper study and learned about firefighters.  We used our fine motor skills to cut out our own fire fighter hats and decorated them, we made our own fire truck snack out of crackers and cream cheese, and we brought out a fire fighter outfit complete with our own fire truck made out of boxes that we all got to paint so we could put it in the block center.

This week, the school saw a performance by the Honolulu Spring Quintet playing the Hawaiian story of Paka’a.  Mrs. Butin has been teaching us about all the different woodwind instruments: the flute, clarinet, oboe, and the bassoon. We have also been learning about the french horn and the Ka’eke’eke.  We even got to hear a conch shell!

After the performance, we got to talk to the musicians and take a close look at the instruments.

For the Japanese “Hinamatsuri” doll festival, Girl’s Day, some of us dressed up in kimonos and enjoyed special snacks like Chi Chi Dango.  Thank you to the families who brought!

[Cognitive development: the arts:music, music vocabulary, language development. social studies: cultural anthropology, cultural diversity and unity]

This week, our very own general contractor, Mike Inouye, came to talk to us about the construction workers and the tools they need to build our school!  Uncle Mike showed us his safety gear and let us touch some of his equipment.  He then brought out some of the vehicles with Uncle Jobey so that we could sit in the driver’s seat and in the front loader!

We also had a visit from a veterinarian, Dr. Scott.  He talked to us about taking care of animals, showed us some real x-rays and even gave our lovebirds, Mango and Guava, a check-up!  These real experiences conversing with our community helper friends, and seeing their tools and equipment, help us to engage more in our learning!  We have more knowledge and vocabulary to incorporate into our block center as we imagine ourselves as real construction workers building.  We also know more about taking care of animals so we can change our doctor office into a pet clinic and practice being veterinarians!

Community Helpers:   Aunty Lei came to share with us about being a Pharmacist!   She showed us some of the medication bottles she uses for liquids and pills, an inhaler, a nebulizer, her counting tray, spatula and tongs.

Chaselyn got to help show her nebulizer.  Aunty Lei let us borrow her counting tray and spatula so that we could practice counting vitamins and pouring them into the bottle just like she does!

Then, Uncle Norm invited his friends from the SWAT team to talk to us about their job and show us their robot.  They even let some of us use the remote to control it!  We were inspired by the robot so we decided to make our own robots out of our recycled materials.  We love to incorporate what our children’s interests are in our curriculum.

In celebration of our  100th  day of school, activities included making headbands, decorating a cake with  100  snack items, counting  100  pennies, and  more !

These activities help our fine motor development, social development (working with peers) and cognitive development: math (numbers).

Room 6 is still exploring our community helpers lesson theme…

Valentine’s Day helped us to introduce the Postal Service when we made cards for our friends and changed our Writing Center into a Post Office. The banker visit helped us to introduce the concept of money so we can match the pennies to the corresponding piggy bank labelled with numerical values. Also, our doctor visit emerged an interest in the transformation of our Pretend Play Center into a doctor’s office where children can model the role of the doctor/patient/families, etc.

Lots of new vocabulary enriches our language development, different concepts continue to challenge our cognitive thinking skills, the roles in society give us a hands on learning opportunity to explore social studies and we’re having fun too!

We are learning about more community helpers.  Aunty Melanie came to share about being a banker!  She brought the class a money activity and display, read us a book for our library, talked about the different things people use money for, her role in society to help people who need money and the importance of saving money in the bank.

(cognitive development: social studies-awareness that people work to provide things; ways people get the things they need; money and how it is used; language: vocabulary,comprehension)

Christina even helped prepare for the presentation and shared it with her peers!

(social development; language and communication)

Some of Aunty Melanie's FBI friends came to talk to us about how they help to protect us just like the police do!

They had us use our fingerprints to put on our very own Junior Agent badges!

Last week, Room 6 was very busy! First, we saw the Amazing Bubble Man…

We learned about the science of the bubbles he makes..He made some over our friends, into a square and even floated them up to the ceiling.

Then we presented our Chapel song and led worship…

After chapel, Room 6 families got to spend some lovely fellowship eating some breakfast snacks and running around Atherton courtyard. Thank you families for coming to worship with us, and for donating the flowers and the snacks!

Finally, we went on our field trip to the Oahu transit station to move along our community helpers, but also introduce an upcoming topic on transportation.

We learned about bus and traffic safety, waited at the bus stop, paid the fair and asked for a transfer…

Got to ride on our own City Bus, sang the Wheels on the Bus, and took a picture with our tour guide, Ms. Lana. Thank you Room 6 parents who came to chaperone!

As we extend our construction lesson, we include talking about the architects who need to design the structures and draw out the blue prints or the plans for the building. We split up into our small groups and each group observed an area of our school to draw our own blueprint of what we see. We observed how many buildings there are, classrooms, the sanctuary, Atherton chapel, how many windows and doors, garden boxes and sandboxes, etc. We all participated in drawing a part of our school and then brought it all together to make a big blueprint of the whole school.

(cognitive development: mathematics, social studies, language; social development)

We turned the pretend play center into a construction work site and an architect workshop. The children can use rulers to measure and draw out the lines for their blueprints with pencils so that they can deliver it to the construction workers

(creative expression; social development, fine motor development)

We also got to see 7 cement trucks come to school and pour the cement for our new classrooms. The children show interest in the different construction trucks and the process of building our new school, leading our curriculum towards more exploration of this study.

(cognitive development: social studies, language)