By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Staff Writer
‘EWA BEACH — At the beginning of the school year, teacher Janet Okamura challenged her students to excel. Never mind that they were only 7 and 8 years old.
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| Janet Okamura’s class shows some of their prizes, which included "Arthur" dolls.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser |
"She told them, ‘You’re second-graders now, so you have to do more than you did in first grade,’ " said Eileen Hiroto, principal of ‘Ewa Beach Elementary School.
And, boy, did they. In a project that Hiroto said highlights the school’s emphasis on daily writing, the children wrote, produced and starred in their own play. They spent several months researching, writing, editing and finally staging the original work. They even made their own costumes and props with the help of their parents. And now the class has won national recognition for its efforts.
Competing with more than 30,000 children representing 1,388 classrooms nationwide, Okamura’s 26 students won an honorable mention in the Make a Difference Day Contest sponsored by Pizza Hut’s Book It! program and USA Weekend magazine. In all, three top winners were chosen and 15 honorable mentions were awarded.
"We were so proud," said Garen Damo, 7.
The students decided to build their play around Arthur the aardvark, the character created by children’s author Marc Brown. In "Arthur’s Hawaiian Adventure," Arthur and his family are visiting Hawai‘i when his sister loses his glasses. Together, they set out to find them, in the ocean, on the beach, in the mountains and in the rain forest. Along the way they meet Hawaiian characters such as Kanani the baby whale and Moki the surf gecko and ask about the glasses. None of the local critters has seen the glasses, but they offer gifts instead.
The play, like the Arthur stories, has a message.
"The lesson is when you take things, you should return them right away," said Garen.
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| Mark Antalan, left, and Garen Damo avoid a flying cockroach, played by Vincent Duldulao, right, in a scene from their play.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser |
"If it’s someone else’s, you need to take care of it and be responsible," said Aly Peterson, 8.
Writing a play was difficult, the children said. Okamura agreed. It was a long, involved process, she said.
The students researched Arthur’s character by reading and studying nine books about him. They then studied characters in nine locally written books that featured Hawai‘i heroes such as Honu the turtle and Musubi Man.
They had to decide on a problem to solve and come up with a solution. Each child produced a problem and in the end the class voted for which problem to tackle and which solution to use, said Okamura.
The class performed the play three times, at the school, at the public library and at a PTA general membership meeting.
Hiroto said Okamura, who taught the group last year as first-graders, knew just what they were capable of doing. The school belongs to a program called America’s Choice, in which teachers stay with a class for two or three years.
The award means $500 in cash, a free pizza party, two plush dolls of Arthur and his sister, D.W., and a 25-book set of Arthur stories for the class. But that’s not the only reason the children were happy.
"The kids were so excited because they worked so hard," Okamura said. "It’s not for the prize. It was being recognized, knowing what they did was important."
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