Eggshell Ornaments

Yesterday we got into the festive spirit making eggshell ornaments.  We were lucky to have retired teacher Mrs. Shaefer come to our class to teach us this very special activity.  Thanks, Mrs. Shaefer!

We rotated through stations to put glitter in the background, create a diorama inside the egg, get ribbon and beads glued around the outside and finally attach a string to hang it.  We were fortunate to have Shayoni's grandma and Menura's mom come to help us too. (Ms. Birdsall doesn't have too many photos of the stations because she was too busy with the glue gun!)

 It was a fun afternoon and the ornaments turned out beautifully!

Making Our Kiva Loans!

Last Thursday was an exciting day.  We made our first Kiva loans!  You may recall that we recently held a beanbag toss fundraiser. We raised enough money to make seven $25 loans.  To help us choose our loan recipients, we established the following criteria as a class:

1)  Has one or more children under 18 years old.
2)  Between the ages of 20-50.
3)  Lives in a country with a low or medium human development index rating (The human development index is a United Nations measure of standard of living.  See the ratings here.)
4)  Field partner (agency distributing loan) has at least a four star rating.  (less risk of default)
5)  Monthly repayment schedule.

Choosing loan recipients is no easy task, since there are over 6000 people asking for loans on Kiva!  To start, students divided up into pairs and began reading profiles, using the above criteria as a guide.  When they found a person who sounded promising, they recorded more information, so they could tell the class about their candidate.

 

 Pairs then recommended one or more loan recipients to the class, and together we read their profiles.  Students then got six votes.  They could "spend" their votes however they saw fit.  They could vote for six different people, or they could give two votes each to three people, for example.  (We made six loans on Thursday, the last one will be determined later by students who were absent on Thurs.)

In the end, we chose the following loan recipients.

- Merly from the Philippines who sells bamboo.
- Rodelyn from the Philippines who sells jewellery.
-Rexhep from Kosovo who is an onion farmer.
-Janet from the Philippines who is a fisherwoman.
-Carlos from Paraguay who runs a food distribution business.
-Paulina from the Philippines who is a pig farmer.

It is great to think that our loans will help these people to build their businesses.  With the profits, they will be able to improve their lives and the lives of their families.  The best part is, when our loans are repaid, we can reloan our money to other deserving people on Kiva!

Egg Prep for Christmas Ornament

Next Monday, we will be making eggshell Christmas ornaments.  Each student will need to bring two prepared eggshells to school on Monday, December 8. We will be painting them, so white shells work best, but brown would be okay too.  If you family does not eat eggs, please let me know in advance so that I can arrange to have extra shells for your child.

To prepare the egg:

1) Use a pair of sharp scissors to poke a hole in the side of the egg.
2) Starting at the hole, cut an oval out of the side of the shell.
3) Empty the egg yolk and egg white.
4) Trim the oval a bit more if needed.
5)  Rinse out the shell.
6)  Leave it to dry overnight.

The finished decoration will look something like this:

Any questions or concerns, please let me know.