Residency in Greenacres

2/23 - 3/6 2009. Greenacres 3rd grade classrooms. The Greenacres Team: Marian Absgarten, Sean O'Rourke, Nick Miller, Paula Bautista, Sydney Lipez, Trudy Moses, Nancy Closter, Paul Berger, Carole Philips, and William Yang.

My residency in Greenacres went wonderfully well. The classroom teachers and the special te

achers were very supportive in ensuring that the program went smoothly. Like in the previous schools, I spent two weeks here; the first one in regular classrooms, and the second week in the special classrooms. Through the interactive activities, students learned a lot about Indonesia; its geography, family life, school life, games, government, economics, animals, plants, art, music, sport, and folk stories. Students also made very good connections in comparing and contrasting between New York/USA and Indonesia. 

The batik lessons went really well. Nancy Closter, the art teacher, used a very special glue that could function like the wax in a real batik. Students were excited to design their batik, block certain sections with glue, and dip it in different colors. 

What went very special was Sasha, my daughter, came to sing the Indonesian songs together with the 3rd graders. They were excited to see her because they were quite familiar with her. They  learned a little bit about Sasha during the first week when we discussed about what Indonesian family looks like, and I used a lot of my personal stories. Trudy Moses, the music teacher, already taught them some Indonesian songs using YouTube links that I sent her earlier. The songs were very famous children songs in Indonesia sung by a 8-year old Indonesian child singer, someone around their age. The titles were: "Gembira Berkumpul" (Happy to be together) and "Anak Gembala" (The Shephard Kid). The kids loved the songs, and we had a great time learning and singing those songs together.