A Memorable May Day

Aloha my friends!  I hope you hopped through my last post and got some amazing ideas for the end of the year!  I am still trying to decide which writing activity to use with my students this coming week.

If you have followed my blog for awhile them you may be familiar with our May Day program. Schools all over Hawaii celebrate May Day with song and dance to represent our unique cultures.  Our school takes it up a notch and we really go all out every year.  It is kind of a big deal at our school.

I admit I have a love/hate relationship with May Day.  It's so much work and preparation for weeks in advance, but I love the outcome!

It is held outside on our field. Teachers, parents and community members set it all up.  The flowers, plants and decorations are all donated by the community.

This is the stage for the Royal Court.  In a traditional May Day the court has a King and Queen, princes and princesses to represent the Hawaiian Islands.

The program begins with our principal welcoming everyone.

The conch shell blows to signal the arrival of the Royal Court.

The 6th graders each have a part in the court.  Each color represents an island. This is the island princess and prince of Kaho'olawe.

These are the king's guards getting ready for the arrival of the King and Queen.

The ladies in waiting.

The arrival of the King and Queen.

The parents of the King and Queen arrive to adorn them with flower leis.

The crown that the Queen is wearing is made of flowers!

Once the court is seated the performances begin.

Kindergarten and preschool did a Globetrotter routine. Very cute!

The first grade did a Tahitian dance and it was just beautiful and adorable.  I may have had tears in my eyes at the cuteness of it!

Aren't they just precious?!

Third grade performed a dance from Ghana.

The first graders took us on a trip to Samoa.

Fourth grade girls performed a Carnival dance from Brazil.

The boys then took the stage and showed us their Capoeira skills.

Here are my talented second graders.  They were super cute and their performance was top notch!

Once all the grades have performed the princesses perform a hula,

 as well as the princes.

The finale is the Queen and all of her ladies in waiting performing the final hula.

I forgot to mention that the teachers perform too! We did a disco routine to a medley of songs since this year marks the 40th anniversary of the opening of our school.  I don't have a picture, but there is a video floating around on Facebook that I will post on my page.

Post by Surfin' Through Second.

You can see just by the pictures that this is a huge school event that unites our community and makes the parents, kids and staff proud of our school.

Our Mardi Gras routine was so cute and the kids loved it.  I loved their costumes! But let me tell you, sewing costumes and rehearsing for the last few weeks with my second graders has kept me very busy!!

Now that May Day is done I am on auto-pilot for the rest of the year.  I am not running off any copies of anything!  

We are working on some fun plays this week.  We will be reading and maybe performing (depending on time) Spiderella,  The Three Little Elephants and Pinnochio.

12 Fabulously Funny Fairy Tale Plays: Humorous Takes on Favorite Tales That Boost Reading Skills, Build Fluency & Keep Your Class Chuckling With Lots of Read-Aloud Fun!

These have been perfect to get my class engaged and reading.  I have two boys that are so into their parts.  They have been asking to read it every day!  I will definitely be filming them when they are ready!

I hope your end of the year activities are wrapping up nicely and that you don't have too many days left! Mahalo for stopping by!