Mahalo!

"Mahalo" = "Thank you" in Hawaiian

Wow, the number of people who've found this school blog and left comments is incredible! We read and respond to each one, but haven't kept up with putting up new posts, mostly because we don't know what would grab former students' and families' interest.

Today someone anonymously posted links to two YouTube videos of a 1989 Hickam Elementary chorus performance. We were blown away; the performance itself shows such talent on the part of the students and chorus director, but the fact that someone thought of letting us know about it is equally amazing. The videos are:

Chorus Performance Part 1
Chorus Performance Part 2

Weren't those kids great?? OK, here's something that some of you might respond to -- do YOU have a picture or video of your time at Hickam Elementary that you'd like to share with us? Email us with photo attachments or links to pictures/videos.

Mahalo!!

Do you remember your first day of school?

Students began streaming back to Hickam Elementary yesterday. Because we started so much earlier this school year, some haven't registered yet and might trickle in the next couple of weeks. Our enrollment is quite high already, and will probably continue to increase for a while.

Ahh, the first day of school. New supplies, new faces, and for many, a totally new school in a totally new state. Some of our students are veterans at being "the new kid in class", having already attended several different schools in their short educational careers. For our youngest, Hickam Elementary is their very first in what might become a long list of schools.

When asked, most children use words such as "excited", "scared", and "shy" to describe how they felt their first day at school. I wonder how many adults can remember how they felt their very first day, especially at a school they had never attended before.

Chime in: how did you feel on your first day at school? Or more specifically, how did you feel on your first day at Hickam Elementary?

First day of summer

shot from Duke's Waikiki restaurant on Saturday -- great view and yummy food!

Today is officially the first day of summer, but for us at Hickam Elementary, summer made its appearance the day school let out a week and a half ago. The last week of school was chock-full of parties, awards assemblies, report cards (!) graduations, leis, and farewells.

Both students and teachers will have to pack their fun and relaxation into a shorter amount of time this summer. The single school calendar has us returning on July 27th, almost a month earlier than in previous years. This means that we'll get more breaks during the school year, but that the summer will go by more quickly than before.

But hey, we're in Hawaii, where almost every day is like summer, if you don't count the 46 straight days of rain we had in March and April!

Trolling for HES alumni

I rarely go on MySpace, but figured that'd be a good place to start looking for Hickam Elementary alumni. Didn't want to scare 'em by contacting them directly, instead I posted to a HES alumni group and asked if they'd visit this blog. I might end up contacting a few later, the ones who'd remember me either when I was a classroom teacher or more recently as the tech coordinator/computer teacher.

One person contacted me and said he'd stop by here sometime. Cool. Let's get this thing going!

Let's hear from ya!

A few years ago we had a popular online guestbook on our school's website, with oodles of messages from former students, some who attended as far back as the 1950s! The site that was hosting the guestbook up suddenly disappeared, along with all those wonderful entries.

I'm hoping that this blog can take its place.

If you are a former student, parent, or friend of Hickam Elementary, or if you have current ties with our school, please leave a comment to this or other posts I'll put up. We'd love to hear from you!