Wednesday, November 17, 2010

VOTE ONLINE NOW TO HELP LEIHOKU ELEMENTARY WIN $50-100K!

Aloha Maile,

Can you please put this link on your blog and ask people to rate Leihoku Elementary and then vote for us? We could win $50,000-$100,000 for the school. The more votes, and the better rating we have, the better our chances.

We are now up to a 2.3 stars, and we need people to rate us until Oct. 26, and then after that, everyone needs to vote for us. Here is the link to help Leihoku Elementary's cause:
http://ourschoolneeds.discoverbing.com/projects/default.aspx?prj=2298#fbid=xKTUROueJdr&wom=false

Thanks,

Suzette Farnum, parent
hawaiisuz@hawaii.rr.com

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Excerpt from Bing! website:

PLAYGROUND!
School Information
Leihoku Elementary School
86-285 Leihoku St
Waianae, HI 96792
THIS PROJECT NUMBER IS: 2298

Project Details

We live in beautiful Waianae, Hawaii and have nice days to play outside most of the time. The only problem is our school has no playground equipment. Our school needs things like balls, jump ropes, and hula hoops so our children don’t have to spend their recess time either sitting around or just playing chase. The neighborhood surrounding the school has about 27% of families living in poverty so there aren’t many resources around from which to get what they need. As elsewhere in the country our school district has no extra money.

Play is an important part of education for children. Even Albert Einstein thought so. He said, “Play is the highest form of research.” He is not alone in this theory. Author, Leo Buscaglia said, “It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them.”

Our children need a time where they can take a break and enjoy themselves so they can be fresh to come back in and learn. They would learn vital social skills such as sharing, negotiating and taking turns. All of these skills are important to help them to deal effectively with each other in the classroom. If they have equipment, they will be motivated to run and get exercise. They will have fun being healthy.

Exercise is very important to keep all of our children in shape and create good physical habits. Learning to throw, kick and catch balls helps with gross motor skills. It also gets out all the pent up energy from sitting in the class so they can be prepared to come back in and learn in the afternoon.

The parents of the kindergartners have recently started a volunteer program to come and help supervise games at recess time. The children had a wonderful time playing Duck, Duck, Goose, Red Light, Green Light and London Bridges. Consider how many games could be added if they had playground equipment. The parents are giving their time so that the children can have a more rewarding recess experience. It would increase the quality of this time if they had balls and jump ropes with which to organize new games with.

We are hoping that the volunteer idea catches on to the higher grades and all of the children will have an enriched recess time. The older children will benefit even more from having basketball hoops installed on the backboards, and tether balls attached to the tether ball poles. Schools always had equipment in the past to give the children positive ways in which to utilize their recess time. Many great memories of fun time spent playing with friends on the school playground, whether it was playing Dodge ball or kick ball, are part of many adults past. We want our children to have those same great memories.

I would like to end with just one more quote. “Exercise improves classroom behaviour and academic performance.” (Dwyer, Sallis, Blizzard, Lazarus & Dean, Relation of academic performance to physical activity and fitness in children. Pediatric Exercise Science, 13, 225-237, 2001

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