Good times at the Oakland Ice Center– the big holiday show was this Saturday. Did you catch it?
The first week of December was the last week for our first semester of tutors from UC Berkeley. Each student helped make our tutors farewell cards. We will miss having you around! Not to worry, we’ll have new and returning tutors again in February. Can’t wait!
On Monday last week, volunteers from UC Berkeley’s American Red Cross Youth Services Committee came to run FACT Day with our students. FACT (First Aid for Children Today) Day is a presentation that covers basic information such as earthquake safety, fire safety, general first aid, nutrition etc. The volunteers worked in small groups with the children to do different skits, presentations, and worksheets.
Three of Anna’s friends, staffers from the Taiwanese American Foundation summer camp, guest starred with Passport on Wednesday. They’re just big kids who love skating as much as the little ones!
Did you know that after the kids are all gone, our Berkeley tutors stay for training? This week, volunteers learned about age-specific strategies, and they were led through the developmental markers for 5, 6, and 7 year olds. Most importantly, they related what they learned to our very own students, and they shared suggestions and strategies with one another.
Swimming was cancelled today due to the heavy rains, but not to worry! If you can’t beat the rain, join it! Anna had a special rain painting activity for small groups of students.
First, we took small paper plates and drew secret designs on them with white crayon.
Then Anna put a few drops of food coloring around the plate. We made different predictions about what would happen when we put the plate outside in the rain. Finally, we walked outside and put the plates on the ground, waiting for the magic to happen!
Splat splat splat! The rain turned our color drops into paintings, and our secret designs were revealed. If you try this activity at home, just be very careful not to get the coloring on yourself. Some of the colors will stain!
Today’s workshop was all about color! First, we had four minutes to draw as many swatches of color as we could find in our crayon boxes on these small white papers.
Then some of us shared our color swatches. Aaron showed us his special color mix, shown on the upper left below. Then everyone chose two of their colors to circle for the next part of the activity.
We went through various magazines looking for the two colors we had chosen. We divided a black piece of paper in half and made color collages for each color. Here are some of the finished examples:
It was Mid-Autumn Festival this past weekend, a lunar harvest holiday celebrated with full moon viewings, lanterns, and eating mooncakes! So on Monday, we read Round is a Mooncake, a picture book by Roseanne Thong about the circles, squares, and rectangles a Chinese American girl sees in her environment.
Next, we made a list of round things mentioned in the book and went on a scavenger hunt outside to see what other round things we could find.
Finally, we made collages using the shapes we read about in the book.
During snack time, we even got to try mooncakes. Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!
This week, we started splitting into our tutorial groups with Anna (older students), Fiona (K-1st graders), and Willie (mixed group) in our various classrooms at Lincoln Square and Lincoln School. Here are some shots of Anna’s group in Ms. Tom’s room.
Thank you to the two teachers at Lincoln School for letting us use your rooms. We will take good care of them!
