Coming to America

As you may recall from past years, every year at Allison's school they have a special event for each grade. In kindergarten it was Japan day, last year was the Fairy Tale Ball and this year the special day was entitles "Coming to America". The kids have been studying about immigration for several weeks now and during that time they needed to research a country their family had immigrated from. Since my dad actually immigrated from Egypt when he was 14 due to religious persecution we decided this would be an interesting choice for Allison to study. She had to interview my dad about Egypt and use the information she gathered to create a book (but more on that later). This past Wednesday was the big day. We had to dress our children as if they were immigrants coming to America. I knew this was no easy task so I asked my mother-in-law for help. She is quite a talented seamstress (secondary to being a Physics Professor) and she came up with the perfect outfit:

The school's media center was transformed into Ellis Island where the kids hopped aboard a very crowded ship to set sail to America. But before they could board, they were searched:

Once the long, cramped, and arduous boat ride reached Ellis Island, the kids disembarked and were interviewed by immigration agents who determined if they should be allowed into America. It wasn't easy to be allowed in. The kids had to present their passport and were then asked questions like "What kind of work will you be doing once you are allowed in?" and "Have you ever been in jail?" or "What kind of skills do you have?" Luckily Allison made it through the interrogation:

Here is what her passport looked like:

After they made it through the interview, they had their photos taken (by yours truly) for their ID's. They were then sent to the have a medical exam to receive their immunizations and ensure they weren't bringing any diseases into the country. A couple kids ended up being quarantined. Luckily Allison wasn't one of them!

Once they made it through the exam, they were declared citizens and had their pictures taken in front of the Statue of Liberty:

And with that, the immigration was complete. Wednesday evening we went back to school for a presentation and performance by the 2nd graders. We started out in their classroom where the students presented their parents with a book the kids had been working on about their country. They had been working on this book for weeks and it was obvious that a lot of effort went into it. It was 25 pages! I didn't scan every page because it's a bit long but here are some excerpts from Allison's book on Egypt:

Read this page carefully, I like her last sentence:

This page includes a picture of Allison's great great grandfather:

After the book presentation, we all headed to the cafeteria to watch the kids perform. They sang 6 patriotic songs and in between each song the kids spoke. The whole performance was about 45 minutes so I decided not to put up the video - we actually stopped videoing after about 25 min because Jeff was tired of holding up the camera. I do have a clip of one of the songs. It always warms my heart to hear a group of little kids sing. It doesn't matter what they are signing, it is just such a wonderful sound. Add to that the fact they they were singing about patriotism and what it means to be an American and you have quite the tear-jerker. Here they are signing "America I hear you singing. (btw, Allison is in the back row and given her short stature it's not easy to see her, but all you need to do is listen).

They ended the performance by exiting the stage one by one and naming the country that they studied. They then joined hands and sang "Proud to be an American". Um, tissues please! Not sure what they do in 3rd grade but they better "bring it" because it will be hard to top this one.