A visit to the Hawaii Nature Center

Aloha Room 8 'Ohana:

     On our recent trip to the Hawaii Nature Center, our 2nd graders got to experience an adventure in NATURE!  They started the day off with an orientation presented by Ms. Kalei.  She questioned them about the different cycles in nature.  She had the students explain each cycle (gas, water, plant life, animal life, and nutrients) using props to help them decided. 

     Our adventure started off down by the Makiki Stream.  The students were able to do some net fishing.  They caught baby shrimp and fish!  It was a first experience for a lot of the students! :)
Next, we went for a hike in the valley and searched for decomposers, like worms, beetles, ants, and roly poly bugs!  NO Spiders or centipedes please?  Finally, we went on a scavenger hunt to build our class terrarium.  We collected things we found in nature, like leaves, seeds, branches, nut shells, rocks, and flowers, on our walk back to the buses. 

     It was an exciting day full of new discoveries and learning!  All in all we had a great day in nature! 

BLOG QUESTION:

What was the most interesting thing you learned during our Nature Center Unit?  It could be something we did/talked about in class, or something that we did/talked about at the Nature Center.  
Please comment below.  Don't forget to add your FIRST name ONLY.  No last names please?

Mahalo and Aloha,
Mrs. Wong

Mileena has a steady hand and a good eye! I think
she's about to hanapa`a!  

Did you know that our Earth is mostly water?

Pick Me, Ms. Kalei!!!!
I know a lot about each cycle in nature!

Fishing down stream is a great strategy!

Kaneala caught something in the stream! Wow! 

Irae caught a baby shrimp! Good Catch Irae!

Yay!  Hiking in Nature sure is fun!

It's the Plant life cycle!  

Look what decomposer I found!

Going on a decomposer hunt! No spiders or centipedes please?

Nicole caught a baby shrimp swimming down stream! 

Science Insta-Lab! Fossil Print Creations

Aloha Room 8 'Ohana!

More pictures to share during our Science lab of creating Fossil prints!  Can you guess what fossil print they are?


ENJOY THE LEARNING...
Mahalo,
Mrs. Wong

Jayven is guessing what Legend created on his fossil.

I made a fossil print! Can you guess it?

Plant or Animal?

Guess what kind of print fossil I made!

When a scientist finds a fossil, they must study the different parts of it and compare it to the closely related living things  that we have on earth today! 

Fossil printing is fun!  Especially when you can quickly and accurately guess
why your friend did

Meet our Future Paleontologist!

Aloha Room 8 'Ohana!

Just sharing some of our recent learning in science.  The students were fascinated with fossils and what we could find in soil!  Here are some pictures that show how they applied their paleontologist skills in digging for rocks inside of their fossils! 

The other pictures will show how the students created different fossil imprints during their "Insta-lab" work in science one afternoon!  They played a guessing game of "Guess the Print-fossil" with their partners!   Enjoy the learning...


Mahalo,
Mrs. Wong

It takes lots of concentration to get all the rocks out of the fossil!

Paleontologist-Kaneala and Paleontologist-Jaycob
are finding a lot of rock-treasures in their 100 years old fossil!

Paleontologist-Nicole estimates that she'll
end up with over 50 rocks!

Paleontologist-Caitlin thinks she has excavated all
the rocks in her fossil!

Fossil imprints are fun!

Paleontologist-Jaylee
has steady hands using
her excavation tool!

Look at the fossil I found! LOL! 

Look!  Can you guess what kind of fossil print I created?

Mini-Manapua Making! Kung Hee Fat Choy!

Aloha Room 8 'Ohana!

On Wednesday, February 21, the 2nd graders got together with family and friends to celebrate the Year of The Dog.....Chinese New Year!  Thanks to Mrs. Takahashi, Mrs. Akamine, Mrs. Kilaulani, Mrs. Wilkerson,  Mrs. Lewis, and other parents from 2nd grade, the annual event was a SUCCESS! 

Here are some pictures of the wonderful experience to make our own homemade mini-manapua (Char siu bao).  Enjoy the beautiful smiles and yummy mananpua in the making! Mahalo to everyone!

                                                                        Mrs. Wong

This manapua is onolicious!

I'm ready for my pork filling!

The biscuits are nicely shaped and ready to be filled!

So that's how they put the filling in the manapua! 

BEFORE the oven...

Thank you Mrs. Lewis for adding the red dot on
each manapua!  It wouldn't be complete without
the RED food-coloring DOT

AFTER the oven.......YUM YUM! YUMMY!

We sure had some award-winning actors up on
the stage!  Thank you to Mr. Fuimaono, Mr. Ray,
Mrs. Wilkerson, Mrs. Gaddis, and Mr. Oshiro! Great
acting by our STAR-2nd graders:  Pelesasa, Ben, JayLee W.
Dylan, and Kylee! Awesome job!

Great Job Jaycob!  You look so festive with your
 Chinese Drum--Den-Den Daiko!

Here we go!  Let's show them how we do the Lion Dance! 

Junior Achievement Learning

Aloha Room 8 'Ohana!

Sadly, our Junior Achievement segment has come to an end.  I hope you all learned a LOT about different things that deals with Economics and Government.  We sure learned a lot of new words and reviewed topics that were already discussed in career and technology class. 

In Ms. Saydee's first visit, we did a lesson on community workers and the different careers and businesses found in a community.  In her second visit, we reviewed the difference between Goods and Services, and learned more about our Wants and Needs.  We also got to work in our own Donut Shop!  Remember how "TEAMWORK" really helped to make your Donut Shop business a success? What about earning money for your creations and then having the TAX-collector take some money back?  That was hard for some of you to pay the Tax-collector!  Just ask your parents.....they can empathize with you!  Of course, I remember how much you all enjoyed the donuts you "created" and "ate" as a reward  (at the end of the lesson) for doing such a great job as Donut Entrepreneurs!  Finally, on the last visit, Ms. Saydee's lesson dealt with money movement.  She shared a rap song with us to show us how money moved within the banks and businesses within a community.  She also shared about voting and gave you a ballot to choose which task would benefit our school the best? 

I hope this segment of Social Studies was a great learning experience for all of you?  In your Blog Question, I want you to respond to this question.  Please post a comment on:

1.  Describe something that you learned in Junior Achievement (JA).  Explain how you can apply what you've learned to your own life?  

Happy Spring Break! I'll see you on March 27!
Aloha,
Mrs. Wong

Learning about different community helpers

What career would you choose?

Wow!  We got a lot of matching careers that Ms. Saydee mentioned!

What is a Community? 

Making donuts sure takes a lot of hard work!

YaY! Donuts as a reward for working so hard!

What is the difference between a want and a need?

Here's our ballot! We Voted! 

Let's see how many matching cards we can find!

The Lunar New Year---February 16, 2018

Kung Hee Fat Choy Room 8 'Ohana!  

Welcome to the Year of The Dog!  In a recent story we read in our Wonders Reading program, we read about a girl who was able to celebrate the New Year twice!  Twice? Huh?

Well, the story begins with how she first celebrated the New Year while in the United States of America.  To celebrate, they had a lot of festivities in her city, with many people watching a parade, and gathering to countdown the last seconds of the old year and welcome the new year with spectacular fireworks coloring the night sky!

She then went on a  plane, traveling to China!  In China, they celebrate the Lunar New Year!  It's not celebrated in just one day, but over several days! Fifteen days to be exact!  The Lunar new year lands on a different day each year, unlike the new year that is celebrated in the U.S., which is always on January 1.  So that is how she could celebrate the New Year TWICE!  

To read more about the rest of the story, check out the Wonders (Connect Ed.) online program!  Read about it in Unit 4, week 3!  

On February 16, we couldn't let the day go by without having some Chinese New Year festivities ourselves!  In another article we read in Scholastic News, it was about the Lunar New Year and lion dancing.   We viewed a video to show us how actual martial artists in China maneuvered around in lion costumes, entertaining and celebrating with many people along the streets of China-town.  Some of them were skillful acrobats, but that took years of training to do!  We could probably handle moving  the lion's head up and down, side to side, and even shimmying our way around the room!   Thanks to Mrs. Saito's recent donations of her son's lion head puppets, we were able to practice just in time for the up-coming 2nd grade manapua making event!

Enjoy these pictures of our very talented lion-dancers in the making!  Kung Hee Fat Choy!  
                                                                            Aloha, Mrs. Wong

                    Here comes the lion!  Get your lucky red-paper ready!  Feed him for Good Luck!
These RED envelopes are called "hongbao" in Mandarin and "lai see" in Cantonese. 

Can you just imagine how long it takes to learn how to jump
from one platform to another while being under a huge
lion costume?  That takes a lot of patience and hard work!

Moving around in the lion costume takes focus,
imagination, creativity, and even muscles!! 

The Year of the Dog is expected to bring peace
and calmness.  Let's hope it will!