Once again, our 8th grade KEEP students are taking part in the International Book Sharing Project.  This year we are paired with the students in Ms Larisa Raiter’s class of Ort  Oren in Afula, Israel.  We will read the Island on Bird Street by Uri Orlev and converse with each other in our forum.  We are very excited to begin this project.

Be sure to go to KEEP Flickr site to see  the KEEP students who will travel to Europe in March 2010 who are participating in this project.  We can’t wait to see pictures of our Israeli friends!

Ms. Olson

Mark your calendars!  May 21st at 6:00 p.m. in the Kepner Auditorium we are having our annual end of the year celebration for the trips.  Ms. Arriaga will unveil her slideshows from DC and Europe 2009, the students are giving short speeches and Joshua & Jonathan Arreola’s group will break dance for us. Every student will be given a certificate of travel.  We hope to see you there!

Dinner is catered by Chez José.  It’s free but you must RSVP to Carrie Olson (Carrie_Olson@dpsk12.org) by Thursday at noon.

We had a busy day on our first full day in Washington, DC.  Our day started with a great breakfast made by Halle and Mr. T our wonderful friends at the Embassy Suites kitchen.  It is so heartwarming to see our old friends still here.  Everyone ate a good breakfast thanks to them.

We learned about the White House at the Visitor’s Center.  Many children were thrilled to see the pets of the children through the years.  Jackie O’s timeless beauty caught many of our girls’ attention.  They commented on how pretty she was “back in the day.” We also got our Junior Park Ranger stamp on our booklets providing an introduction to the National Park system.  We were saddened to hear that “our” ranger, Jennifer Epstein, who has helped us so much in the past years is out on sick leave.  We hope she gets better soon.

Our visit to the top of the Washington Monument was exciting.  The students loved seeing all the places we’ve studied about from so high up. We learned that a monument was created when someone is still living whereas a memorial is created after someone has died.  Interesting!

We also had a fast-paced visit to the Air and Space Museum.  It was filled with interepretive talks, hands-on demonstrations and all of the usual interesting airplanes, rockets and space things.  The students loved touching the moonrock.  There were also lots of space things made out of Legos, including Star Wars spaceships.

Tony Cheng’s Mongolian Barbeque is always a highlight and today was no exception.  The staff there has taken care of our students for the last 17 trips to DC.  We LOVE their food.  Some students are wary of selecting raw food to be cooked but loved it once it’s cooked.

The remodeled Ford’s Theater rounded out our day and everyone got a t-shirt from here.  We also visited the House Where Lincoln Died.  The students thought it was really small.

Swimming, Italian food and working in our books rounded out the day and we’re ready for more DC!