family values Archives - Page 8 of 18

Mar 31 2020

Preparing My Grandson for a Third Cultural Heritage Experience

My grandson’s mom recently returned from an extended trip to the Elephant Nature Park in Thailand. During Mom’s travels, Kenji’s dad relocated his business to Bangkok, Thailand. When I talk with my grandson about his mother’s recent trip and his dad’s business relocation, I realize that my grandson will be expanding his cultural heritage to another new country when he lives with his father in Bangkok. Our family will prepare for this new cultural experience by participating in the following activities:

Continue to talk with Mom about her recent trip to the Elephant Nature Park and view the pictures of his mom’s trip on Facebook.
Have Dad send Kenji pictures of his new cultural experiences in Bangkok and talk about these experiences during their FaceTime phone calls.
Meet with family friends to look at photos of trips to various sites in Thailand. During this visit, Kenji will also receive some historical postcards that he can use when he writes notes to his father. Kenji and his dad can talk about these postcard pictures during their FaceTime phone calls.

[Read more…]

Joyce Iwasaki, Early Parenting

Joyce Iwasaki has over thirty years of educational experience working with diverse students in grades from preschool through high school. Joyce’s extensive background includes teaching elementary school, serving on early childhood advisory boards, and advocating for educational initiatives as a legislative aide. During her tenure as a legislative aide, she helped create legislation that allowed incarcerated mothers to keep their newborn babies with them while in prison. Additional legislation was enacted to allow incarcerated pregnant mothers to remain unshackled during labor and delivery. Ms. Iwasaki established and served as the president of an educational scholarship foundation for fifteen years. Her foundation awarded college scholarships to emerging student leaders who provided service to their schools and communities. Joyce is active in performing arts and cultural organizations. She also provides ongoing support to her daughter and family by raising her grandson in her home.

Mar 10 2020

Mom Is on a Trip

While Kinji’s dad visited his son in the United States, his mom traveled to Thailand. When Kenji was with his father, he did not miss his mother because he was excited to spend this time with Dad and his relatives. Once I took care of my grandson at his home for four more days (beyond time spent with Dad?), Kenji commented that he missed his mom when playing because his mom was always there. I immediately acknowledged Kenji’s feelings about his mom’s absence. Through this encouragement, he returned to playing with his toys.

When mom was gone, we also talked with her on the phone. Initially, Kenji did not want to use the FaceTime feature when talking to his mom because he said it would make him sad. Eventually, Kenji decided to talk to his mom on FaceTime. During the conversation, he said it was hard to see his mom’s face and not be with her. After that phone call, we stayed busy until mom’s return with school and various outings. [Read more…]

Joyce Iwasaki, Early Parenting

Feb 25 2020

Teaching and Parenting Middle Schoolers

Having taught middle schoolers for 10 years, I would say I had the privilege of experiencing and learning all about this this pre-adolescent age group even before my own children reached this stage in life. Whereas most parents would dread the middle-school-aged years, I have enjoyed and still relish my interactions with my own daughter, a 13-year-old middle-schooler. Here are some of the teaching and parenting principles that gave excellent perspective and insight for parenting my own children. [Read more…]

Jaime Koo, Encouraging Literacy

Discovering the joy of teaching while in high school, Jaime pursued her B.A. in English at Santa Clara University. She also received a teaching credential and a M.A. in Education Administration from Santa Clara University. Jaime taught English Language Arts at Rancho Middle School, motivating and inspiring young people to become effective communicators and contributors in their community. From being a Middle School English Language Arts/English Language Development teacher to becoming a stay-at home mom, Jaime is an education consultant who presents literacy workshops. Her workshops focus on a combination of her ten years of teaching expertise with tried-and-true experiences that she uses with her own children. Jaime is also a Teacher Consultant with the San Jose Area Writing Project. Jaime’s mission is to share effective reading and writing strategies with families to encourage literacy.

Feb 11 2020

Wonderful Experiences with Dad Across the Miles

Although Kinji’s dad works in Japan, my grandson thinks his relationship with his father is quite normal when he shares extended time with his father in the United States or in Japan. Between visits, their close relationship is maintained through regular FaceTime phone calls throughout the week. Ongoing phone conversations focus on:

Their daily life activities and Kinji’s new Lego creations
My grandson’s exciting adventures at school
Kenji’s participation in various afterschool programs including Karate and swimming
Math discussions on prime numbers, multiplication, and how to identify number patterns

[Read more…]

Joyce Iwasaki, Early Parenting

Jan 07 2020

Helping Our Children Manage Their Feelings

I just survived another challenging Monday morning in the classroom. My second-grade students were scheduled to attend an educational assembly early Monday morning until a series of power outages forced the staff to cancel the assembly. Then we returned to our classroom after completing a few exercises.

We started our classroom activities by talking about feelings for the day. We listened to a guided mediation where two children have built sand castles on the beach. After a couple of hours, the ocean surf washes away the sand castles. One child is happy while the other child is sad. [Read more…]

Danielle Gentry

Danielle’s first step in education did not begin with education at all. It began with her first love for science. She received a B.S. in Biological Science, with a concentration in Molecular Biology. Her five years of experience as a chemist in the biotech industry at SYVA and Dade Behring Diagnostics include both areas of quality control and research and development. Her contributions were qualifying products for release to sell to the diagnostic market as well as developing new diagnostic technology for immunoassay detection. Danielle’s subtle transition to discovering her passion for education was through the birth of her daughter. She became a stay at home mom. Her uber volunteerism at her daughter’s elementary school gained her access to her path of education. She now holds a multiple subject teaching credential and M.A. in Education from National University. She has over ten years of experience at Sakamoto Elementary School as an educator in kindergarten, sixth grade, second grade, and a 2/3 combination class. Her teaching is rooted in a constructivist model while fostering independence and accountability in the classroom.

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