Hello All,
For a variety of reasons,video conferences scheduled in Japan for Thursdays (US) during the months of November and December did not occur. The conference date chosen for November had to be postponed due to a conflict with preparations for activities involving a festival of some sort in Japan. Due to glitches in the webmail system and computer problems throughout my building, e-mails concerning rescedules were not successful. Subsequently, my partner school asked for a reschedule on Thanksgiving which could not be conducted. The December date chosen for our December conference fell on the night of my school's holiday concert. Confirmation for the following Thursday (the fourteenth) was not made, so the permission slips which needed to go out, arrangements for the children to be picked up at five o'clock, and set-up of the video equipment was not made. Further, a glitch due to daylight savings time forced the start time up from the agreed upon 4p.m. to 3p.m. When my partner called at three wondering about the conference, I was still teaching my class. A call from the district earlier in the day had put an end to the matter once and for all when it was discovered that the tape for backing up material to the server was broken and would not eject from the server. The system was then shutdown for repairs beginning at three thirty. (All the computer people are probably nodding your heads right about now, but honestly, its all greeek to me!) Anyhow......It has been decided that an additional conference will be held at the beginning of February to make-up one of these missed conferences. An exchange of videotapes will substitute for the other.

The third video conference between Vanderburg Elem and our partner school Nanakuni Elem. took place in mid January. Students showed us marvelous creations which they had made from silk moth cacoons and demonstrated through several examples the lifecycle of the silkworm and the production of silk fibers. The demonstration culminated in the display of several fashionable items made from silk fabrics. This demonstration will be particularly helpful next year when I do my Silk Road unit in the fall. The students already study the production of silk and the legends surrounding the discovery of silkmaking, but these visuals will strengthen these lessons even more. Funding for my own silkworm collection fizzled this year, but I'm still trying....
Only three students from one of my two fifth grade GATE classes were able to participate in this conference. These students had completed the research and presentations for the planned December conference which did not occur. The three students gave presentations on various holiday traditions including Hanukkah, Kwanza and the Korean New Year. The Hanukkah presentation included an explaination of the festival of light while the Kwanza explaination also included a drawing of the candelabra associated with the holiday and the symbolic meaning associated with each candle and its roots in African American traditions. One of my students wore her mothers traditional silk dress associated with the Korean New Year! She spoke of traditions involving the cooking and serving of various dishes on the holiday and taught the participants the traditional bows for both boys and girls.
Two of these students also showed the results of our solar cooker project which we completed earlier in the year in the hopes that our Japanese partners could join us in their designs. This did not occur. Intial attempts at heating water in these cookers were not very successful due to the cool fall temperatures. We will try again in late April/early May when this project is normally completed by my students. By then the temperature outside should have risen dramatically resulting in a better measure of design success. We have been asked to share more of these cookers at our final conference on February 15th.
Photos to follow.
Bill Gilluly, Henderson, Nevada