Wednesday night, Bellwood Discovery School had a joint video conference with Kashiwagi Elementary! It was very successful. Bellwood School had 13 students, many parents, and some students from the 5th grade. Matthew Lyons, who visited Kashiwagi in the summer, also said hello.

Some parents brought pizza and a dessert made from Rice Krispie cereal, which was shaped like sushi. Everyone enjoyed the snacks.

In the video conference, first Bellwood students introduced themselves in Japanese. Then, Kashiwagi students introduced themselves in English.

Next, we discussed Fast Plants. The Kashiwagi plants are very lush, tall and full. The Bellwood plants are small and puny. We do not know why. We discussed temperature, water, light and soil. Somehow, the plants are different. Also, Kashiwagi mutant plants were VERY tall. Bellwod mutant plants were very short. We do not know why! Bellwood studdents showed a chart of statistics. Shirari showed us photgraphs of his plants.

Mrs. Fukuoka also talked to her colleagues and greeted them from America. She told them briefly what was happening.

Nikki Ogawa, a parents from Bellwood, was our translator! She really did a good job. Thanks to her, the conference went smoothly.

Time was running out, so we skipped our discussion of Bugs and Soil. We will do that next time.

Instead, we did our Chopstick Challenge. We had four team players, and five bowls. We had to get 10 beans to the last bowl. On two tries, Bellwood was faster. However, we were not using hte same beans! We were using Kix cereal...this may have been an unfair advantage. We will try to use the same beans next time.

When the students and parents left, Koji and Mariko and Cindy decided on dates for all the videoconferences. We chose Tuesdays and Mondays due to the fact many American children attend church on Wednesday nights.

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