To help our students and staff appreciate the distance our Raey Guang sister school friends are traveling to meet us, I created a screencast video using two great free apps: SCREENR and GOOGLE EARTH.
This video will take you on a virtual tour from the United States to Michigan to Hudsonville and our school to Taiwan then Pingtung County, arriving at No. 86 XingFeng Rd — Raey Guang Elementary School.
If you’d like to brush up on your mandarin and see introductory videos of our friends, visit these two prior posts:
Our sister school, Raey Guang Elementary (Pingtung, Taiwan) will be visiting us October 29 through November 1. This will be their third visit to our school and we are thrilled to host them again.
Making the trip are 20 children (ages 8-12) and four teachers. There are twelve Georgetown families that are hosting our guests. The host family stays are the most memorable part of the visit–our Raey Guang friends never forget the kindness that is shown to them.
We have posted the photos of our visitors paired with their host students on a board in our lobby. You can also see a display in our rotunda highlighting features of the Taiwanese culture. Mr. Chen, one of the teachers, created a special blog to introduce each student.
The purpose of the trip is to expose the Taiwanese children to American culture, education, language, food and traditions. They are very excited to spend time with us during the holiday of Halloween.
Did you know that you can see the school of Raey Guang in the town of Pingtung by using Google Earth? If you have this application downloaded, paste this address into the site: No.86, Xingfeng Rd., Pingtung City, Pingtung County 900, Taiwan. Here is a photo of the school entrance using Google Earth. Isn’t technology amazing?!
RaeyGuang Elementary School: Google Earth Street View
During the visit, we will share photos on our blog. We are counting down the days to their arrival.
All our preparations are done for our Sister School to arrive from Taiwan. We are now waiting for their arrival on Wednesday, May 4.
We will hold an all school welcome ceremony for the 18 students and five staff members on Thursday at 9:30 am. We will share photos, video and special details right here…on our awesome school blog.
Can you tell we are very, very excited for their arrival?!
Our penpals are coming to visit! We found out at the beginning of this month that a group of students, teachers and parents will be making the journey from Taiwan to Michigan to meet us. Currently, they are scheduled to arrive in Michigan on May 29 and visit our school on June 3rd and 4th.
For those of you who are new to Georgetown within the past year, our school was matched with “sister school” in Taiwan in September, 2008.We have been communicating with Raey Guang Elementary through email and blogging. The BLOGPALS site contains highlights of our communication together. You can access this from the left sidebar by clicking on the map of Taiwan.
In addition, several of our students are matched with students from Raey Guang. They are emailing one another, sharing information about their families, interests and school life. You can read some penpal correspondence between:
I would like to highlight a very special blog this week: Families that Blog Together, Learn Together. This site matches Georgetown families with Raey Guang families — the intent of fostering an appreciation and understanding of one anothers family lives. Our sister school, Raey Guang Elementary, is in Pingtung, Taiwan.
Michele DeWinter, a parent and paraprofessional in our school, is responsible for creating, hosting and managing this blog. She has matched families and creatively works to overcome the communication barriers (English vs Mandarin).
A Raey Guang teacher, Chia Pin Chen, recently added a class post to our Blogpal site. The post helps us to learn about their interests–foods, activities, and pets! Please take time to read the post and leave comments sharing your interests. In addition, Chia Pin Chen, created a class blog with photos of the children in his class. This blog is in early stages of development, but very much worth a visit.
We look forward to sharing all that we learn about our friends in Pingtung, Taiwain through our blogs.
