Medals of Honor

This past Tuesday, November 11, was Veterans Day. The entire school celebrated and honored American veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve their country. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students braved the cold and walked over to Tracy Park to hear Dr. Terry Johnson speak to those in attendance. Dr. Johnson is a local physician and county coroner who will soon return to Iraq for his third tour of duty. The students also heard several other veterans speak and listened to the patriotic music of the West High School Band.

Mrs. Dengel's class learned about the holiday in class while parents and grandparents shared facts about veterans in the children's families or other veterans that the families knew. Children then wrote about their veterans and read their stories to the class. Individual "medals of honor" were created by each child which were displayed on the walls outside the classroom before they were presented to the veteran that they had written about. If the veteran was no longer living, the medal was presented to the individual who told the story to the child, for instance, the child's grandmother. Children also worked collaboratively (in groups of three) to design five different Medals of Honor on the computer. You can see the results of their collaborative work above.

Wallpaper For Art?

Yes, you can use any material to create art. All you need is a great imagination and not limit yourself. When you allow your creativity to take hold, you get the results that our second grade friends in Germany sent us. You can see the results of their latest art project using wallpaper scraps. Miss Billmann cut an opening in the center of each piece of wallpaper and the children were to complete the missing pattern on the sheet of paper that was covering the opening. Children had to not only match designs, but colors as well. We all agree that our Erlangen friends did a spectacular job.

Kiss the Pig! Kiss the Pig!

That's what the entire school was shouting after Father Dwayne said that he would kiss a pig if the school raised $19,500 or more with their annual fall fundraiser. Students in grades pre-school through sixth grade were busy selling to their relatives and neighbors in an attempt to see the parish priest kiss a pig. Such an entertaining exhibition had never taken place in the school's nearly 100 year old history until today. The top seller was a pre-schooler who sold nearly $1,000 worth of items. He received several prizes and $200 for his efforts.

Each classroom also had a Pig Race using battery-operated pigs. There were three heats and then the final race. Mrs. Kempf's Kindergarten pig crossed the finish line first. But the crowning glory of the fundraiser was when Father Dwayne puckered up to kiss the pig on the snout while Mr. Harting held "Wilbur the Pig" steady for the fulfillment of the promise. Although Father Dwayne thought the pig was cute, we all saw him wipe his lips immediately after snout and lips made contact.

Election Day

Today we voted. The people in our country came out in record numbers to vote for a new president. We had a mock election in our classroom this morning to help my second graders better understand how the process works and how many citizens are involved. I began by reading them a book titled WOODROOW T. WASHINGTAIL FOR PRESIDENT on Monday. The story is told in rhyme and the main character in this book is a mouse. The book expounds upon the virtues of Woodrow the mouse (qualities that U.S. citizens like to see in their president). The book takes Woodrow through the process of becoming a candidate, campaigning, the convention, more campaigning, the election, and finally Inauguration Day. What's interesting in this tale is that the main character's running mate is a female, just like the running mate of John McCain.

The social studies homework for last night was to have parents help my second graders fill out a registration form because I wanted them to understand that a citizen has to be registered before they can vote. Parents were also invited to share with their child which candidate they would vote for and explain to them why they would vote for that candidate. This morning children assumed variuos citizens' roles in our classroom polls. One group was given the registration forms to check to see if the voter was registered. (To my delight, all children returned their forms.) Another group had the voters sign in with their signatures. A third group passed out the ballots with the names of 5 candidates (the two major parties, the Constitution Party, the Green Party, and the Libertarian Party, all in alphabetical order by last name). After all the children voted in secret behind a screen and placed their ballot in the ballot box, a fourth group read the name of the candidate that was marked on each ballot. The final group made tally marks on the SMART Board to record the votes. Before voting began and before all votes were tallied, children were cautioned to respect each other's votes because each vote was right for that individual. There was no right or wrong candidate. Children were told that as a democracy we are to respect each other's beliefs, even when they are different from our own. I was pleased that the children took these words to heart since there had been arguing when they first arrived to school. After all the votes were counted, Barack Obama won by two votes in our class. We'll see tomorrow if our class voted like the nation.

Mandala

If you've never heard of a mandala it's a Sanskrit word from the Hindu religion which loosely translated means circle. This circle is made up of patterns and symmetry. Ms. Billmann's entire school got involved in creating a mandala to celebrate the harvest season. Children brought in various plants, leaves, and seeds to create their mandala. The fall colors were abundant in this project. Reds, yellows, oranges, and different shades of brown produced a stunning work of art. What a great way to involve the entire school! If you would like to see this grundschule in its beautiful country setting, visit www.gs-bruckerlache.de/

The Art Room

As each day passed, my students learned more interesting things about their counterparts in Germany. They loved seeing what the art room looked like in Germany because our school does not have an art room nor does it have an art teacher. Each teacher is dutifully commissioned to teach her own art. Fortunately for my students, I had a minor in art and was a lover and promoter of the arts since childhood.

My students were fascinated by the chairs which just slid onto the children's desks in Germany. I could answer questions about the chairs to a certain extent because I had seen similar chair/desk combinations when we visited a boarding school in Ettal. You can see the unique design of the chairs which makes it very simple for the German children to get the chairs off the floor.

We Reciprocate

After receiving Erlangen's second graders' artwork, my students were eager to share what they had created in their art lesson. I had secured left over pieces of mat board at a local picture framer's shop and then using an Xacto knife, cut each mat board into the shape of some of the old stained glass windows of our historic churches here in Portsmouth. Children then used tissue paper which they cut into squares and used glue sticks to adhere and overlap the tissue paper onto the mat board. Next, they used a liquid glue and beans to create the woodwork of the windows. They were very pleased with the results and were eager to send their artwork to the children in Erlangen, Germany via the Internet.

Art from Germany

Ms. Billmann sent us a photo of the artwork that her second graders completed. They used several colors to cover a sheet of paper and then used a black crayon to cover all the other colors they had used. After the entire sheet had been covered with a black crayon, they scratched away at the top surface to reveal the colors underneath while creating a picture. We were excited about getting our first photo. We discussed the scratch art technique which the U.S. children had explored in a past art lesson, but in a different manner. U.S. children normally just scratch the surface with a ballpoint pen (one that has run out of ink) on a pre-manufactured sheet of paper that is one color underneath the black top coat. Mrs. Dengel's class agreed that the technique that the Erlangen, Germany group had used was completely their own because they each designed the colors underneath the black top surface on an individual basis. That made each artwork very unique.

Hooray! We have a school!

Since children in Erlangen, Germany were still on holiday (vacation) when we began school on August 25th, it took every ounce of patience on my second graders' part to wait to make our initial contact with a teacher in Germany. We finally recived an introductory e-mail on September 27th from Ms. Billmann. She explained that she was a student teacher and that she had a group of 7 and 8 year olds to whom she taught art and a group of 9 and 10 year olds who were learning English. Because we had celebrated Constitution Day the day before, we introduced ourselves to Ms. Billmann and her art class by sending them a photo of our entire class holding up the first three words of the Preamble to the Constitution. We explained that we had dissected the preamble and learned what all those big words meant and why the preamble was an important part of the Constitution. We also told her class that we learned the preamble very quickly when it was put to music. After practicing it for only two days, we sang the preamble for the entire school over the intercom on Constitution Day. Music can certainly help us remember big, boring words that otherwise might not make any sense.

Great Beginning!

Families enjoyed the brief Schultute ceremony in the school cafeteria. After each child was presented her/his schultute and was wished "the best year ever" by Mrs. Dengel, parents and children were treated to an assortment of cookies and fruit juices. Parents enjoyed their cookies while the children opened their little treasures. Mrs. Dengel also had a giant chocolate chip cookie decorated with balloons and the words "Wilkkommen Zu Zweiten Grad" for all the new second graders. The children gathered around the giant cookie as Mrs. Dengel cut each piece into a pie shape for each one of them to consume. Parents and children were eased into a new school year beautifully, thanks to this wonderful German tradition.

A Schultute on the First Day of School

During Open House on August 21st, children and parents were informed that we were going to exchange ideas and artwork with second graders in Germany this year. Everyone was excited! They were even more excited to learn that on the first day of school after attendance and lunch counts were taken, parents and grandparents were invited to the school cafetria for a German celebration traditionally reserved for first graders. But since this was an introduction to a culture that they would be studying all year long, Mrs. Dengel made each of them a mini-schultute that contained school supplies, a rubber bracelet with the colors of the German flag (provided by the Goethe Institut in Washington D.C.), and an assortment of candies to sweeten their first day of second grade. A schultute is a decorated cone with a netting or tissue paper top that can be secured with a ribbon. The contents vary according to each family, but sweets are always included. The schultute cones that Mrs. Dengel made for her second graders featured Disney's Little Mermaid (for the girls) and Disney's Cars (for the boys). The anticipation and excitement that filled the cafeteria as each schultute was opened, made it an incredible first day of school in second grade!