May Day 2010

OK, while I’ve had the commentary all finished up for May Day for this year I hit some major snags when I was trying to upload the videos. And since I actually made sure to take some good video this year I wasn't about to post this without it. So I finally broke down and uploaded the videos to youTube instead of blogger and embedded them here for your viewing pleasure. {Those of you who get this by email will need to click here to see the post online to watch the videos.}

So without further ado, I give you May Day 2010. For those of you long-time readers, you'll notice that this year's commentary is a little longer than usual since not only were the kids in their May Day at Laie Elementary, but my "kids", well students, and I were in our May Day at Hau'ula Elementary.

For those of you who may not have read here about May Day before it's a big production here. This is our fourth year running, so if you want to check out past year’s posts:

{Sorry, wasn't blogging back then... so you can't link to May Day 2007}

Here's the link to May Day 2008.

Here's the link to May Day 2009.

Here's the run down this year. Laie's May Day was first. Like usual the performance was at the Polynesian Cultural Center ampitheater. And for some reason my pictures keep loading in backwards order, no matter the order I upload them in, so Abi's up first even though she danced last out of the three.

Abi and the third graders danced to a song from Disney’s Hercules, among some other Greek music. She looked great in her toga and gold leaf laurel crown.

Isaac and the first grade were paying tribute to New Zealand. Isaac's favorite part was the boy's haka - I think even I have it memorized for how many times he practiced it at home (Juliana has it memorized, motions, too)! His face painting was really cool, too, but unfortunately it was washed off by the time the performance was over and we were taking pictures

Danielle and the kindergartners danced to a medley of British import songs - all decked out in their hippie costumes. And Danielle had a special dancing part that we didn't even know about, so that was fun.

Hau’ula’s May Day was a week later, thankfully. It’s certainly different working May Day from the teacher side, a LOT of work, but really fun none the less. The most unexpected part for me was the kids getting tired of practicing. They would be so excited all morning, knowing we were going to practice later – to the point that it was distracting to them. But the second we got out to practice they would all grumble and moan and not want to dance! But it did finally come together. There were a few things that we would have liked to add to it, but we just ran out of time. It didn’t help that we left on our Big Island trip the following Monday, so we were preparing for that at the same time, too. Anyway – I got to participate in May Day in 2 ways. First of course was with my students. The 4 graders decided they wanted to do something with Michael Jackson, so my cooperating teacher and I set to work to come up with a medley of songs and dances for them. I think it turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. And just to toot my own horn – I did all the choreography thank you very much. Well, and a big THANK YOU to youTube and all those faithful loader-uppers, because it would not have been nearly as cool if I had to do it all from scratch.

The second way I got to participate – at Hau’ula the staff and faculty do a number of their very own! Hello – so much fun! We did an African number which I think turned out great, though attendance to practices was a little sporadic as teachers really don’t have much free time, ya know.

All in all we had some great May Day festivities. And that was just the beginning of the May crazies. As I mentioned, my fourth grade class went to the Big Island the next week for 4 days, then the day after we got back Danielle “graduated” from Kindergarden. Then the following Tuesday was the last day of school, Wednesday was Abi’s 9 (!) birthday, and Thursday was my last day of student teaching. Not that things really calmed down after all that though – I was working nonstop on my portfolios so that I can actually be done with school and trying to pack up the house at the same time. I am ecstatic to say that now both are done!

**Whew! This better all work - it's late and I've been working on this FOREVER! Hope it works...I'm going to bed.