WaterStone Bank Contest and Kinderfest

Last Friday was a really special day at school. During April I had posted about WaterStone Bank hosting a 90th Anniversary giveaway to local non-profits. Well, we didn't win the first place prize of $30,000, but HOORAY, we ended up 5th place in the overall voting and were awarded $15,000! That is huge for us and our Foundation!

Since early May, we knew we were one of the recipients, but I didn't want to blog about it until it was official. The press release is here. On Friday WaterStone Bank arrived at school, gigantic check in hand, just in time to see one of the funnest end of the school year events, Kinderfest. The check presentation was done in the gym with all the kids present, and there was wild cheering and tons of excitement. It was great!
 The bank representatives were very impressed to be completely immersed in a German speaking environment and see how the kids responded with such natural ease. They even got to hear the kids sing some favorite German songs.

The German Immersion Foundation will use the money to help fund and expand the Amity Intern Program at our school. Every year we have between 4 and 5 German college students come to our school to complete their teaching internship. I cannot say enough about how valuable the interns are in our classrooms. Beyond the native German language skills they add, they lend an entirely unique and authentic German culture experience to each classroom they help out in. We are so thankful for the Amity Interns and for the funds to be able to continue this excellent program!

As a side note, now when you click on the German Immersion Foundation logo in my sidebar, it no longer brings you to the voting page, but instead directs you to the Foundation's website. Just in case you are ever curious about what GIF is up to.


 After the awards and singing in the gym, the kids all headed outside for Kinderfest, a school carnival day. Here, Alyssa is jumping rope with Frau Petri, one of the awesome interns spoken of above. Its so cool how the intern program not only brings great benefits to our school, but also that it benefits the German students who come here as well. They seem to love the experience of teaching in the US. There is a current 2nd grade teacher who was hired full time as a result of her internship, she had the opportunity to go back to Germany to teach, but felt strongly enough about the program that she chose to stay here. Recently one of the interns was amazed at the banana muffins I brought into Rebekah's class {I'll be honest, they were from a box :-)} and it's just small things like that where a huge cultural difference is seen, and I appreciate so much that we can introduce them to things, and our students learn so much from them.


 Emma and her sweet classmate, Dara waiting to play some Kinderfest games.


 This picture of Rebekah with her hand in a popcorn bag just about sums up her entire Kinderfest afternoon. She ate treats, and more treats, then more treats. All week long we had talked about how this was her very first Kinderfest, and she was so excited.

I was supposed to be working one of the games when I saw her sitting in the grass on the edge of the playground. She was all alone, just snacking and staring at the older kids playing tug of war out in the field. I was worried that she lost her friends and was sad, so I walked over to see her. When I asked her what she was doing she told me very contently, "I'm watching them tug the war." Then she added in an almost nostalgic way and like she was very much trying to ingrain the thoughts in her memory, "I can't believe this is my first day of daycare." See, we have this conversation at least twice a week when we walk past the after school daycare in their school's gymnasium about how much Rebekah loves daycare. I always have to remind her that she has never once been to daycare. So somewhere along the way she has gotten the impression that daycare is carnival games, tug of war, tricycle races, magnetic fishing pole games, dunk tanks, and snacks. And she was very proud to finally spend her first afternoon there!


 In the picture above where A and R are smiling, this is what they are looking at ~ Ka'iulani's teacher in the dunk tank, and she did get wet. Thank you, Frau O'Connor for being such a good sport! There's not a whole lot that kids enjoy seeing more than their teacher sitting in a dunk tank.

It was a good day to be a MGIS Ladybug! Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to vote for us in the contest!!