A Visit With Mr. Mikkel

Today Mr. Mikkel Johannessen (Smilla’s dad 2L) visited and gave a presentation to all of Grade 2. His work at the Danish Embassy has allowed him to work extensively with the Maasai tribe. Mr. Mikkel shared some great pictures and told stories about Maasai culture. He explained a lot about how Maasai kids are very different than us. He even had a story about an 8 year old boy who killed a lion!

Above is the slide show Mr. Mikkel shared with all of Grade 2.

Asante Sana Mr. Mikkel for sharing your pictures and talking to us about the Maasai people.

IST Grade 2

World Langauges Week in Review

During World Languages Week, a number of parents took time from their busy day to come visit IST to share books, stories, pictures, songs, games and much more about their home language and culture.

“During World Languages Week at IST, my mom came to visit our class and read the book After Dark written in Urdu (a language of Pakistan) to us. She read the words in Urdu first and then she translated the words into English so everyone could understand the story. It is about two sisters. One sister is scared of the dark and she will not sleep in her bedroom by herself. My classmates and I really liked the book. It was exciting to have my mom come in and read the book to us.” – Yusra

Insiyah and Yusra also read a book written in Urdu to the class. “We read the book Come and Take a Shower aloud to the class. It was a fun book to read to the class. The class seemed to enjoy the book when we asked questions. If students answered our questions correctly, they received a chocolate from us. In the story, the boy was fussy about eating some kinds of food. People enjoyed the part where the boy said, ‘the chicken flew out the window’. The boy did not want to eat the cooked chicken so he threw it out the window. The message from the book was that you should not be fussy about food. You should always eat what parents give you so that you can keep your body healthy.” – Insiyah and Yusra

During World Languages Week IST ES Campus was bustling with activity. Here is a short video of one of the performances during recess.

“My dad came to visit us at IST during World Languages Week. He told us a story about a young warrior named Wule. He sang the song “Ulegmanatende” which comes from Iramba (where my dad and I are from) in Tanzania. I danced while my dad sang and eventually the rest of the Kung Fu Praying Mantids joined in. We all had a lot of fun. At the end, my dad and I taught the class a fun game.” - Bertha

Thank you Mr. Jairo and Ms. Rasool for coming to visit us at IST. We had a super fantastic time learning from you!

The Kung Fu Praying Mantids

Our Global Friends – Thanks for the Comments

One of the many positive things about having a blog is that Grade 2 students get to connect with other students and classes all over the world! Here are a few of our new Global Friends that we have started to communicate with by viewing each others blogs and leaving comments. We welcome you take a look at what is going on in classrooms elsewhere in the world and even take a moment to say hello by leaving them a comment.

__________

Our Global Friends: Mrs. Yollis’ Class, Grade 3 students from California, USA.

Here is a comment they left for us on our post, Learning About Grammar – CONJUNCTIONS!.

Dear IST Grade 2,

This morning we read your post AND watched your video, AND now we have a greater understanding of conjunctions. We like your level of enthusiasm when it comes to conjunctions, BUT be sure to always use them correctly.

It is important to proofread for run-on sentences, BUT sometimes we make mistakes.

Are there really zebras in Tanzania, OR did you just put the zebra header there because you liked it?

From,
Mrs. Yollis’ Class

P.S. We tried to use conjunctions in our sentences. How did we do?

__________

Our Global Friends: The Smarties!, Grade 2 students from Western Australia.

Here is a comment they left us recently from our post Acrostic Poems – The Knight And The Dragon.

S tupendous
A mazing
G reat
E xceptional

D azzling
A uspicious
N ice
N ifty
I nspiring

Love,
Mrs N and the Smarties!

Here is another comment they left for us from one of our weekly posts on Current Events.

Hello IST Grade 2,

We’re The Smarties, from Western Australia. Your Current Affair reports look very interesting. You must be learning a lot about the world.

Love from The Smarties

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Our Global Friends: Room 8 at Melville Intermediate School, Hamilton, Waikato in New Zealand.

Students in room 8 have been writing IST Grade 2 students comments of support and encouragement. We appreciate the many nice things they have to say to us about our learning.

From our blog post, Reduce, Reuse and Make 3D Objects.

Hi it’s great that you guy are learning about 3D and 2D shapes.

Elecia
Room 8, Melville Intermediate

Another comment from our post, How Is A Wedge Used?

Extremely good predictions grade 2!
I liked it how you discovered that a wedge has more than 1 use.
I hope you enjoy your future experiments, GOOD LUCK!!!!

Bradley,
Room 8, Melville Intermediate

__________

Thank you to our growing number of Global Friends. Your comments are read and appreciated. Keep them coming!!!

A Visit With John Kilaka

Karibu Mr. Kilaka!

John Kilaka is a well known author, story teller and artist from Tanzania. Thanks to our librarian Ms. Toms, Mr. Kilaka will be visiting with classes this week during library time to share his passion for Tinga-Tinga art and story telling. He is recognized globally for his work, most recently celebrated on the animated BBC CBeebies Tinga-Tinga Tales.

Here is the short introduction clip from Tinga-Tinga Tales:

Dear Mr. Kilaka,

Thank you for coming to IST to share your book, True Friends: A Tale from Tanzania and Tinga-Tinga Stories with us.

From the book True Friends: A Tale from Tanzania

“Only Rat knows how to make fire, and he generously provides it to all the other animals. When his best friend, Elephant, suggests that Rat store his food in Elephant’s solid house, Rat agrees. But when the drought comes, Elephant refuses to share the stored food. “You are tiny, and you don’t need much, ” he says. “So go away.” When the other animals return to fetch their fire, Rat is gone and Elephant is worried. What will his betrayed friend do?” from FlipKart.com

Jodie said, “I really like the book about True Friends. I liked the part where they were all friends again.”

Said said, “I also liked the True Friends book. I liked the part where the characters steal all the food from each other. We all loved getting autographs from you!”

We all appreciate you spending time with us at IST, telling us stories, showing us your movies and drawing beautiful pictures for us.

We hope you come back and visit us again soon.

IST Grade 2
Kung Fu
Praying Mantids

Here we are making our best Tinga-Tinga character pose with Mr. Kilaka.

Learning Links:

Learn more about Mr. Kilaka, his books, stories and his art work.

Learn more about Edward S. Tingatinga – the person credited for creating the popular “Tinga-Tinga” style painting.

View some beautiful Tinga-Tinga style paintings from local artists in Tanzania.

Thanks for the Party!

Dear Parents (aka moms and dads),

Thank you for giving us a nice party on Wednesday. We got to eat lots of yummy food. Thank you for taking time from your work to come to our class and watch us present our fables. We really liked reading and performing our fables for you. We also want to say thank you for the nice prizes you bought us.

We had a lot of fun presenting our fables and spending time with you. We enjoyed eating all the yummy food too.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

You can view all of our Fable Presentation pictures on the IST Grade 2 Flickr site.

The Grade 2 Kung Fu Praying Mantids

Learning About Hanukkah

Dear Ms. Erica,

Thank you for coming to our class to teach us about Hanukkah. We learned that there are eight days that are celebrated during Hanukkah. Hanukkah is a festival of lights. It lasts eight days because once there was a synagogue (a house of worship for Jewish people) that only had a little oil for their lamps (enough for one night). But then there was a miracle that made the oil last for eight days and that is why Hanukkah lasts eight days.

We learned that the Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah by playing a game. The game includes spinning tops called dreidels. To play with the dreidels you first get in a small group of people together. Everyone gets a dreidel and some playing pieces or counters. These counters are supposed to be Geld (a Hebrew word for gold) or you can even use chocolate coins. You have to spin the dreidel and then you have to look at the symbol on the side. The symbols tell you to put one in, take one out, do nothing or take all of the pieces. We had fun playing this game.

Learn more about the history of Hanukkah (or Chaukah) and the dreidel by watching this quick video.

Thank you again for coming to our class to teach us about Hanukkah and all the fun things about it.

Love,
The Grade 2 Kung Fu Praying Mantids

written by Sage, Talin and Jodie

A Visit to IST Secondary School

Dear Mr. Joe and the 9th Grade Class,

Thank you for telling us your fairy tales, folk tales and fables. We liked all of the stories you presented to us. One of our favorites was the story about “Peter Rabbit”. We liked the pictures and the fun sound effects from the stories. We also liked the way that you presented the story, giving us a chance to choose how the story ends. It was fun for us to visit you at the IST Secondary School.

We hope that you liked our fable about the Monkey and the Chicken. We hope that we will see you again soon.

Thank you!
The Grade 2 Kung Fu Praying Mantids

written by Lucca, Henry and Danni