**NEWS+and+UPDATES**

4.4.11 - Came to school to find a SUPER SWEET package from Japan and another package from Italy. We also had a letter from Bulgaria. What a great way to start the week by receiving gifts, learning about others, and receiving items from our international friends.

3.29.11 - A slideshow and some additional photos of our letters that arrived in Hungary to our pen pals. Just go the Hungary page on the sidebar and you can view our pen pals.

A new letter from Bulgaria(email really) about another holiday/tradition. Very fascinating culture. I love this place more and more.

My international pen pal club recorded some video to send to our friends in Japan. They were a little crazy, but it turned out to be pretty good.

3.28.11 - Mardi Gras cooking video uploaded in the Students in Action page

3.28.11 - I added a slideshow of photos from the bus tour around Bettendorf for our Exploration of the Quad Cities project.

3.23.11:
 * Intro video from Japan received(check out the Japan link over in sidebar
 * Email from Italy that our box arrived for all the students.

3.21.11 - Email today from Hungary that our letters arrived at the school this morning. Here is the email I received. Always great to hear that the materials arrived.

Dear Áron, Your beautiful letters have arrived this morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !! I am going to give them to my students tomorrow, ( and taking photos) and we are going to answer them in a week. Thank you very much.

3.11.11 - Today my Lunchbox Project group Skyped with students from Kentucky and Portugal. It was quite the experience. I hope to have some video up soon to post on the wiki.

3.7.11 - After about 3 hours of packaging and prepping our boxes and spending another hour and fifteen minutes at the post office for customs I delivered our packages to Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria. Shipping large packages overseas is not cheap.....$120. Cannot wait for them to arrive.

I have added a slideshow of many of the objects and gifts we sent out in our boxes. These are some of the items that we sent out to Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria to show our appreciation for them writing us letters and being great pen pals. We also included several brochures of our area where we live in addition to photos and letters.

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3.7.11 - Our letters from Russian finally arrived after 7 plus weeks of being in the mail.

1.11.11 - I just received word that the letters our 4th graders sent to Italy before Thanksgiving just arrived today! Not sure what took so long, but man we have been so worried they would never arrive. Maybe all the holiday mail. We cannot wait to hear how it goes when the students read them.

1.6.11 - Today I received word that our PenPals in Hungary have already responded and sent the letters back to us. We cannot wait to read their letters. Waiting is the hardest part.

1.3.11 - Today I received an email from Hungary that our 5th grade PenPal letters finally arrived. Whew! One group down and now just need to hear from Italy.

1.14.11 - Letters arrived from Hungary. Kids will be so excited to read the letters.

1.20.11 - 1.21.11 - Students worked and finished up writing their letters back to their friends in Hungary. Plan on mailing them next week. Brainstorming ideas for an artifact box to send their way as well.

1.29.11 Heard some great news from our friends in Bulgaria. Will be adding information soon to wiki.

1.29.11 Added Woices application to wiki for our voices to be heard.

2.22.11 Letter from Italy arrived after waiting patiently for over 5 weeks. Not sure why a long delay in receiving the letters. We are so excited.

3.11.11: Global Gossip project is now up and running. Time will tell if this will take off or not.