Holoholo with Hoku!

Aloha Room 28 'Ohana,
          As you all know, I was once a kindergarten teacher.  Back then, I had a writing project involving the students and a class "mascot."  The first time I did this project, I had Makana Bear help us with the adventures.  Makana Bear went home with a student, and spent up to 3 days at a time with the student and his/her 'Ohana.  While away, she went on many different adventures.  The students and their 'Ohana wrote about each adventure and included pictures or drawings of their time together.  A few years went by, and we had Puni-Hele given to me and my students.  Again, just like Makana Bear, Puni-Hele went on many wonderful adventures!  It sure was memorable looking back at all the great adventures and people they both met!
         Now, it is time for us to do yet another adventure.  This time, it will be with Hoku.  Hoku, our little buddy, will be on a "holoholo" adventure with YOU and your 'Ohana!  This will be the first time that I will be doing this with a 4th grade class!  I am very excited and I'm looking forward to all the wonderful journeys Hoku will take!  I look forward to all the pictures and drawings as well!  We will have a special drawing of a name to see who goes first!  But don' worry, you will all have a chance to take Hoku home for a visit.  Hoku will, however, be with Mrs. Wong during vacations and intersessions.  It is very important that we all malama Hoku and her adventure book and bag.

Meet Hoku....our Adventure writing project!

Mahalo for participating!   Mrs. Wong

This is the one and only,
Puni-Hele! 

This is Makana Bear.  She started it all!  She is home now,
but she still goes on a lot of adventures with my 'Ohana.
She is sure excited for Hoku to start her adventure with you!

Huki I Ke Kalo, Huki, Huki Mai!

Aloha Room 28 'Ohana,
         Last school year, the 4th graders, along with the gardening club, planted a dry-land lo`i kalo.
Thanks to Mrs. Sharon Aldueso, we were able to plant over 50 huli (stems).  The lo`i thrived and was now ready for harvesting.  Thanks to the expertise of Mr. Matsumoto's son, Kaipo, we were educated about when to harvest the plants.  Kaipo noticed that the corm was showing, so he said it was definitely ready for us to harvest!  It was hard work, but so much fun to dig our hands into the soil and pull out the kalo!  The students did a great job!  We will now clean the corms, replant the huli/stems, and have Mr. Joe Esta and Ms. Liana Kilaulani (in the cafeteria), help us to boil the corm.
                                                                          Mahalo, Mrs. Wong

Mae and Victoria all dressed up for hard work in the lo`i!  

"This took about 3 people to pull out!" 

Jaspher looks confident as a mahi`ai (farmer)!

Planting our Kou trees...

Aloha Room 28 'Ohana,
          Thanks to Mr. Nagano,  from the Urban Garden Center in Pearl City, we were able to get two kou trees to plant at Alvah Scott.  These trees will be taken care of by the 4th graders, with help from the wonderful custodians at Scott School.  We measured the distance between each tree, making sure there will be enough room for them to thrive!  We also measured the height of each tree, and counted the number of leaves.  We will be taking new data each month, for the rest of the school year.  This was the first set of data taken:

Planted on August 20, 2014:

Kou Tree #1:  26 inches tall, 16 leaves

Kou tree #2:  27 inches tall, 16 leaves

Planted 16 feet, 7 inches apart

Here are some pictures of this exciting day of planting and adding two more trees to help with the challenge from Nainoa Thompson, to plant ONE MILLION trees before the end of Hokule`a and Hikianalia's voyage around the world!   

Mahalo, Mrs. Wong

Mahalo to the Urban Garden in Pearl City
for donating 2 beautiful kou trees to us!

Planting kou tree #1

"This tree measures 26 inches tall!" 

"Let's mesure how far apart they are!"  

Malama Honua

Aloha Room 28 'Ohana!
          At the beginning of the school year I asked you to reply to a question.  I asked how do you and your 'Ohana Malam Honua? (How do you and your family take care of the Earth?) There were many different ideas that were shared---all of which were useful and beneficial to our home....our Earth.  Mahalo Nui Loa to the students for decorating the classroom door with their wonderful ideas to Malama Honua!
                                                                                            Aloha,
                                                                                            Mrs. Wong