Halloween of 2012 will always be remembered as one that we shared with our friends from Taiwan. The children from Raey Guang experienced their “firsts” for pumpkin carving, costume making and classroom parties with traditional games and activities.
I am in the process of collecting photos from teachers and parents for a special slide show to share later this week.
Until then, enjoy this photo of Emerson and Makiah Schuur taking Mindy and Angela trick or treating for the first time!
Our good friends from Raey Guang arrived today…bringing with them lots of excitement and energy!
We celebrated their arrival with an all school assembly, listened to presentations about the culture and foods, learned some mandarin phrases, watched a traditional puppet show and learned how to use a Chinese Yoyo.
This evening our friends are staying with Georgetown families, engaged in Halloween preparations and much more.
I have been receiving photos from families out and about this evening. 
Over the next couple of days, I will collect these for you to watch in a slide /show.
Enjoy the slideshows created by two teachers below!
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:
Enjoy your google earth trip!
Mrs. Reagan
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?!
During the visit, we will share photos on our blog. We are counting down the days to their arrival.
Mrs. Reagan
This morning, we officially welcomed our friends from Raey Guang Elementary School! They arrived on Wednesday morning and we have spent the past 36 hours learning about one another’s educational, cultural and social traditions. As a school, we celebrated our international friendship with songs, gifts and more together.
Mr. Bowen, one of our fourth grade teachers, created a slide show with highlights of the ceremony. You can watch this below!
List of things to do for our pen pal 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?!
On October 23, Typhoon Megi hit our sister school Raey Guang
Elementary. The teachers sent me photos to show the clean up work and the students have written stories in English to share with you.
I have linked this this to a RAEY GUANG NEWS page above. The students from Raey Guang would love to read your 
thoughts and comments. This helps them to practice their reading of English.
They are following our blog and the teacher blogs…and would love to hear from us!
Mrs. Reagan
Our visitors from Raey Guang Elementary are firming up their itinerary for their visit to the United States in early June! They will arrive at Georgetown on June 3rd and depart on June 4.
The interest in the trip was higher than expected. The teachers and principal were overwhelmed with 70 student applications. Because there were spots for only 32, the students had to take an English exam and perform in an audition or interview.
The purpose of the visit is to introduce the students to American culture and traditions, as well as exposure to English language. The time at Georgetown will give them a taste of American schooling. Each Raey Guang child will be matched with a student from our building which will allow them to ride the bus home, eat dinner with their host family, spend the night and ride back to school on Friday, June 4. This should be a wonderful experience.
I have matched 22 Georgetown students with Raey Guang students. I am still looking for 10 more host students. If you are interested, and your child is in grades 3-5, please let me know via email or phone. You can also comment on the blog and I will receive this notice as well.
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:
Raey Guang School is situated in Pingtung City, Taiwan. Matthew Lawrence created a google map to show you have to get from Hudsonville to Pingtung.
As we learn more about the visit, we will post information on Blogpals site and link it to this blog as well.
