A Special Lei For You!

Aloha everyone! :)  We traveled to Hawaii for the day!   Kalei taught our last lesson that was intended for fourth graders.  First she shared some of her culture, which included the language and special ceremonies they honor in Hawaii.  She told us specifically about celebrating May Day there.  This is a day in which they make many leis and give them to others!  In fact, leis are what we made for this lesson!  To start making the lei, we first painted on watercolor paper different colors to use for our flowers.  Once the watercolor paper was dry, we cut out flower shapes from it, as well as colored construction paper flowers.  With each flower we were to use a paper hole puncher to make a hole in the center to string the yarn.  Then we were ready to put our leis together!  We took a piece of colored yarn and attached a bobby pin to end of it to help string.  We then started stringing our flowers, and between each flower we placed a green cut straw to represent the stem.  We were to put at least 24 flowers on our lei.  When our lei was complete, we were to give it to someone special.  There are many people in my life that are speical to me, but I decided to give my lei to my mom when I see her next, because she is my best friend and I love her dearly! :)

Wearing our completed project! :)

Extension Activity: For an extension activity, I would have my students share a special tradition they take part in with their family and friends.  We would make PowerPoint presentations as the students will share their tradition through slides of describing the tradition, pictures they may have about it, and reasons it makes it special to them! :)