After the overwhelming success of JESIE's Easter Open Day in Nanjing the week of March 18^th, it only made sense to try for a repeat of that magic in Wuxi.  The three lucky teachers selected to represent JESIE and bring some Easter magic were Tom, Ethan, and Matthew. Three schools in Wuxi were carefully selected for this special event: Wangzhuang Experimental Primary School, Xinlang Primary School, and Meili Middle School.  As always our teachers represented the best that JESIE has to offer.

The first stop of the day was Wangxhuang Experimental Primary School. One lucky 4^th grade class was ecstatic to be greeted by Teacher Tom. Tom began his class with a short warm up to help introduce himself and break the ice. Then he smoothly transitioned into introducing some vital Easter vocabulary. After helping the class pronounce all the words correctly and stressing the distinction between "Bunny" and "Bonnet" for several minutes he introduced a game. He first asked who would like to play, but they were extremely shy and not sure what the nature of the game would be, so almost no one volunteered. Tom then selected about 15 students at a time to come up and form two lines. After handing a ball to the first student in each line, he then called out one of the five vocabulary words which were placed on the board.  When he called out a word, both students needed to hit the word with their ball.  If they were able to hit the word Tom called out they received an awesome sticker.  Once the first group was finished the rest of the students were jumping out of their seats trying to be the next to play this fantastic game. Once the whole class had played Tom reviewed the words again and the whole class was able to brilliantly produce the correct pronunciation of all the words. Then he asked them which vocabulary word they would like to color and held up some great Easter coloring sheets.  Naturally most of the class wanted to color the Easter Bunny, but each word got their fair play in the end and the class diligently began to color their worksheet in beautiful harmony.

The next stop was Xinlang Primary School.  Ethan took this class by storm and used his natural "Texas Take No Prisoners" swagger to show one lucky 5^th grade class what Easter is all about. Ethan broke the ice by having the class guess his nationality and age.  It didn't take them long to guess he was from The United States, but guessing his age was another story. The class guessed every age between 20 and 32 before one lucky student guessed the only age not yet guessed, 24.  Twenty-four was the correct answer and delicious chocolate was given to the lucky student who made the guess. Ethan then introduced some Easter vocabulary to the class.  After showing a flashcard and having the students say the word, Ethan put the word on the board and had a student come up to try and spell the word correctly.  He then split the class into four teams and brought up a student from each team.  He had them put their back to the board and then removed one of the flashcards.  After saying "turn around" the student who could recognize which card was removed and say it correctly won a piece of candy and a point for their team. The next game was a crowd pleaser.  An egg-spoon relay race with a twist.  First the students from two teams lined up and the first person walked carefully balancing their egg in a spoon.  When they reached a small stool they needed to put the spoon and egg down carefully and pick up a flashcard and place it on the board using a magnet.  Then they needed to retrieve their egg and spoon and walk back carefully to pass it off to the next person on their team.  The first team to put all of their flashcards on the board was awarded chocolate and bragging rights. Following the completion of the relay races Ethan had his class make Easter Bunnies using a paper cup, cotton, paper ears, and crayons.  By the conclusion of the class each student has a cute little Easter Bunny to take home to their mom and dad.

The final stop of the day was Meili Middle School.  Matthew was tasked with bringing some Easter magic to one junior 1 class.  Before the class began Matthew had the students make a lane down the center of the classroom. This lane would serve the purpose of splitting the class into two teams as well as the necessary space for an upcoming game. When the class began Matthew introduced himself and selected some shy students to say their names and ages. Then he introduced the Easter vocabulary that would be the bedrock of the lesson.  After all the students could pronounce the words he placed the on the board in varying degrees of distance from the center. He drew big circles around the flashcards near the center of the board and smaller and smaller circles as the distance from the center increased.  He then wrote point values above all the flashcards. The cards near the center were only worth 1 point while the cards near the edges of the board were worth 5 points.  After selecting a student from each team he brought them up and allowed them to play "Rock-Scissors-Paper". The winner would receive one point for their team and the chance to be the first one to throw the ball at a card of their choice. If they were able to strike the flashcard and then say the vocabulary word correctly they would receive the listed point value associated with that card.  The next game was a crowd pleaser and had the girls pitted against the boys.  Matthew instructed the class to pass his ball around the class while he played some Easter music.  The student holding the ball when the music was randomly stopped would need to say the vocabulary word that Matthew was pointing to.  If they could say the word they would get a point for either the "girls" or "boys" team. The uncertainty of the exact moment when the music would stop had the class very excited.  After the ball was passed around the room twice Matthew used a PPT to explain some Easter traditions in The United States. In order to test the students' retention of this new knowledge, as well as their hand-eye coordination, the class was then tasked with an egg-spoon race using ping-pong balls as eggs to save on clean up time.  One student from each team was placed at the back of the classroom with a ping-pong ball "egg" balanced on a spoon.  When Matthew said go they were to walk/run to the front of the room and try to be the first one to touch the teacher's desk.  The winner would get the opportunity to answer an Easter related question and receive 5 points for their team.  This game was a real nail biter and the whole class was terrified, yet excited, to be selected to represent their teams. At the end of the class the students made Easter cards for the person of their choice.

This JESIE Open Day can be added to the archives of fantastic JESIE Open Days of the past without any reservations.  All the teachers and JESIE staff involved worked together to make this day a real success and no one was more excited by our efforts than the lucky students of Wuxi.  JESIE continues to raise the bar and impress all who witness us in action. GO JESIE and HAPPY EASTER!