A Peachy Party!

A Peachy Cake

On Friday afternoon, the four sections of grade 3 at AIS-Budapest celebrated their love of Roald Dahl with a Peachy Party! 

Willy Wonka

Children brought in snacks to share (mostly candy ala Willy Wonka) and some revolting recipes, too.

Lots of children dressed in costumes of their favorite characters. We had a Willy Wonka (see below) a centipede (with stuffed socks as legs along both sides of his body), ladybugs, foxes, and lots of Witches.

Each class prepared an "Oompa Loompa" dance to share; this was a fun team-building activity.

Yummy snacks?

Willy Wonka's Caramel Clusters

We ended the party with a surprise Skype call from our friends at Stratham in New Hampshire! They asked us about where we are from, and we showed them our dances and costumes. Wish they could have tasted some of the cake, too!

Here we are on Skype with Mr. G's class

Van Meter's Peaches Arrived!

Mrs Ducharme is the librarian in Budapest, Hungary

Here in Budapest, we are so excited to get peach-grams in the mail from our new friends at Van Meter.

They arrived yesterday afternoon at 3:00 pm our time. We're sending ours to you today (Wednesday). Wonder how long they will take?

We agree with your reasons for loving James and the Giant Peach, too: the funny parts, the insect characters, and the scene when the gulls pull the peach into the sky. We also loved the names of your peaches, like "Cutie Pie" and "Fuzzy" and "Bubby."

You put your pictures on your peaches which makes it extra fun. We'll show our photos on this blog so you can see who we are when you get our peaches!

Thanks, Van Meter Grade 3's for sending us Peach-Grams!

Let The Rolling Begin!

Today, I put just under 70 peaches in a big brown envelope, addressed it to a new friend in Budapest, and let our peaches from Van Meter, Iowa roll! 

The kids were excited to hear that their peaches journey had begun.  I cannot wait to hear what the students estimate in math class.  They will talk about distance and time.  

Any guesses how long this journey will take?  

And something else exciting happened today.

Five more teachers joined our "Peachy Project" and are going to have their students ROLL peaches too for "Follow That Peach."  

I have added Staci, Tracy, Kathy, Jennifer, and a brand new connection from South Burlington, Vermont, Caliope, to the sidebar of this blog.  I also added another table to the Google Doc we have all been collaborating in for this project.  The new participants will now add their information and we will come up with a travel schedule for them as well. 

This is turning out to be such an amazing way to start the year!  The students and teachers are having such a great time learning together, connecting, and collaborating.  

Let the rolling begin......

The Beginning of a Global Peachy Project

Last spring, my friend and teaching partner John Schu, the teacher librarian at Brook Forest Elementary in Oak Brook, Illinois, and I shared the Follow That Peach site from Penguin Books.  They had created this site to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Roald's Dahl's classic book, James and the Giant Peach.  

As the site states,

"Join the mission to roll James's Giant Peach around the world.

In Roald Dahl’s classic novel James and the Giant Peach, an enormous escaped rhinoceros from London Zoo has eaten James’s parents. And it gets worse! James is packed off to live with his two really horrible aunts, Sponge and Spiker. Poor James is miserable, until something peculiar happens and James finds himself on the most wonderful and extraordinary journey aboard a giant peach...

Send the peach on further adventures and keep it rolling around the world! Follow that Peach! and send a virtual peach or download a paper Peach-gram to send through the post. "

John and I couldn't wait to plan how our students would connect to celebrate this event.  

Last weekend on Twitter I met Sarah Ducharme, a teacher librarian in Budapest, who also wanted to partner with us during this wonderful project. Sarah and I started collaborating with our teachers and put our ideas into a Google Document that we shared.  

I met with Eldonna Skahill, Jennifer Stephens, and Ann Volk, the third grade teachers at Van Meter, and using the FUN Teach the Peach peach pack and a lot of creativity, we planned social studies, science, math, literacy, technology, and library projects that would take place over the next few months.  

Next, I sent an email and Google Doc to John, Sarah, and two other friends, Donna Kouri also in Illinois and Stephen Gagnon in New Hampshire, inviting them to roll peaches around the world with us.  We were so excited when everyone said "YES".  

From the site, you can send a "Virtual Peach" and see if it will get to 50 people around the world (You must be 13 years old or older to create a Virtual Peach, so this would be something fun to do as a family). 

You can also send a "Paper Peach" in the mail and track its journey on the peach itself. We will also be telling the stories of our peaches on this blog too.  

The first thing we did at Van Meter was to create our peaches that we would send off for their trip around the world.  (You can get the paper peaches here from the Follow That Peach site). Every student, several teachers and the administrators all created their very own peach....even with its very own name.  

As our peach travels, they will pick up other "Places" and end up back to it's creator in a few months.  The recipients will even share why they love James and the Giant Peach at each stop.  

On Monday, Van Meter will send their peaches off.  First stop, Budapest to Sarah's 3rd graders.  

Roald Dahl's birthday is September 13th and this year will be extra special in our libraries and schools.  

We hope you join this celebration and journey as well.  

And don't forget to check out the Roald Dahl website below......have fun!