(cheery piano music begins)
♪ You are the best you the world will see ♪
♪ Come along now and share you with me ♪
♪ Let's learn something new and share feelings too ♪
♪ Cause these are the things to do to be the best you ♪
(cheery piano music)
- Hello, Possum.
Hello, friends.
- Oh, hello Auntie Lena.
- How are you this fine day?
- I'm... well...
I'm confused.
- Oh, you are?
Well, tell me more.
- A bunch of kids at school said that
families are supposed to have both a mom and a dad.
- Oh.
- Well how did that make you feel?
- Mm, I felt kind of bad, Auntie Lena.
Well, even though I don't have a papa anymore,
well, Mama Possum and I are a family, aren't we?
- Yes, you are Possum.
The kids at school were talking about one type of family.
Some families have a single parent and one or more kids.
Others may have two dads or two moms,
and some families may have adopted children
or no children at all.
- So Mama Possum and I are a family!
- Yes. You never have to doubt that ever again.
- Phew!
And, well, aren't you and our family too?
- Yes, I am.
You and I are a family of choice.
- A family of choice?
- Yes, because I choose you and you choose me.
- Oh, how many people can be in a family of choice?
- Some people believe that family is based on
who you are related to by blood.
But I believe you can have as many people in your family
as you have room for in your heart.
There's a story called "Ordinary 'Ohana" by Lee Cataluna
that may help you understand what I mean.
- Oh, can we hear it Auntie Lena?
- Of course.
Let's go to the Renton Library and listen with our friends.
(jolly music)
[Together] - Hi friends.
My name is Miss Marie and I'm from Cherubs Nursery School.
And today I'm with my son.
Say hi.
- Hi.
- His name is Chase and we are at the Renton Library.
And today we're going to read a book called:
- [Chase] "Ordinary 'Ohana."
- [Miss Marie] Written by Lee Cataluna,
illustrated by Cheyne Gallarde.
"I don't have an ordinary family.
I live in Hawaii.
I have an Ohana."
[Miss Marie] Look at that big family, all that smiles.
"We live with my Grandma Alice in a big house.
We used to live on the bottom floor,
but then Grandma Alice said
she was tired of going upstairs, so we switched.
Everybody comes over for Sunday dinner.
Sometimes we have Sunday dinners on Saturday night.
Or Wednesday.
Or whenever.
Everybody brings something."
Ooh, what do you like to eat Chase?
- Ramen.
- Ramen! I love ramen too.
"I have an Aunty Darling and a Cousin Darling.
My grandma calls them Big Darling and Small Darling.
I call them Aunty D and 'Hey, you!'
Just kidding.
I call my Cousin Darling 'Cousin Darling.'
We have five Kainoas: my grandpa, my uncle,
two cousins and me.
When somebody calls 'Kainoa!"
we all know which one they mean
just by the sound of the voice and who is doing the calling.
I have an Aunty Angie who isn't an aunty-aunty.
She's my mom's partner and my second mom.
This is my dad's hanai sister,
who is really his cousin.
He calls her cousin "Tita."
We call her "Aunty Cousin Tita."
She always brings coconut cake.
Hey, we also use Tita, right?
For Aunty? Yeah.
Terri Lynn is my second cousin or third cousin.
We just call her cousin.
She doesn't walk or talk, but she likes to laugh.
So I sit by her wheelchair and tell her my best jokes.
Ah, look at that.
Look at that big smile.
Yeah. You like jokes, chase?
- Yes. - Yeah.
I have a half-brother from my dad's side named Daniel.
I have a stepbrother from Aunty Angie named David.
David and Daniel get to be brothers because of me.
This is my uncle Boo.
He can barbecue anything.
Even a Thanksgiving turkey.
These are my California cousins.
We send them care packages of stuff from here.
They send us care packages stuff from there.
We also have cousins in California.
Yeah, we visit them all the time.
My baby cousin Rosie came from China.
My mom's cousin's wife, Rosemary is from Wisconsin
and my Aunty Rosie came from the Philippines.
That's where they're from.
Yeah, that's where our Ohana is from.
They all came from far away, but now they are related.
If I ever get confused,
this is how I remember.
My Ohana is all the people who came to the hospital
when grandpa was sick.
What's that say?
- [Chase] Get well soon.
- [Miss Marie] Yeah, get well soon.
My Ohana is all the people who brought lei
when my cousin Kainoa graduated from college.
My Ohana is everyone who brought laulau
when I had a school fundraiser.
My Ohana is everyone who paddled the canoe
and everyone cheering for us from shore.
My Ohana is all the names I bless in my prayers.
Sometimes, it takes a long time to say my prayers.
I know. Pretty ordinary.
- Thanks for joining us.
- Bye friends.
(funky glittering)
- Wow.
The boy in the story is lucky.
Well, he has so many kinds of relatives.
He could, well, he could have his own soccer team.
(Aunty Lena chuckling)
- My family is small compared to his.
I have one mom, one dad, one sister.
That's why I'm happy.
I get to have a family of choice.
All types of families teach us important lessons.
- Like Grandma Possum teaching me how to fish.
- Yes. And did you tell her that
I said, "Thank you for that last catch of fish she gave me."
- Yes, I did.
Oh, well I have a question about today's story.
Why did the boy have Sunday dinner
on different days of the week?
- Well, Sunday dinner is often a time
when families come together to share a meal
and catch up with each other.
But it doesn't have to be on a Sunday.
Any day of the week can be a routine day to be with family.
- Oh, like when Mama Possum and I
go to the library every Saturday.
That's our special routine.
- Exactly.
- Mm, what routines does your family have Anty Lena?
- Oh, we have a lot.
Our weekly routine is to eat banana bread
after a walk in the park on Wednesdays.
Our yearly family tradition happens on New Year's Day.
We make rice, black eyed peas, cornbread,
and collard greens.
- Oh, yummy.
(Aunty Lena chuckles)
- And that reminds me,
our friends are cooking cornbread today.
Let's look, listen and learn with them at Rainier Beach,
urban Farm and Wetlands.
- [Both] Hi friends.
- I am Chelsea.
And this is my daughter-
- Esther.
- And we are at Rainier Beach, Urban Farm and Wetlands.
And today we're gonna cook something together.
Are you excited?
- Yes. - Yes.
What do we have here?
What are we gonna cook today?
- We are going to cook cornbread.
- Cornbread.
I like cornbread.
Do you like cornbread?
- Yes. - Yes.
Okay. Well let's get started.
So I think we'll do the dry ingredients first,
but let's see what all we have on the table.
We have corn meal and some flour,
baking powder and salt,
One egg and some honey, oil for the pan and some milk.
Are we ready to get started?
- Yes.
- Can you hand me that big yellow bowl of corn milk?
And we're gonna pour it in the bowl just like that.
So I think I've shown you how to do it.
I think you could do the flower if you want.
Try it.
You got this.
We got a half a cup of flour.
All of it's going in there.
Just dump the whole thing, yeah.
And then you wanna do a scoop of the salt.
Right there.
So just take the little spoon and scoop in some salt.
Yeah.
All right, perfect.
And then we can pour in the baking powder right there.
So the baking powder.
And then maybe should we steered a little bit
before we put the wet ingredients in?
- Yeah. - You can stir.
(Esther chuckles)
Yes.
So we were talking about it earlier.
And who else makes cornbread that you really like?
- Dad. - Dad.
- Do you like his cornbread better than my cornbread?
- Well, I like both of yours.
- Okay, cool, cool, cool.
That's a great answer, great answer.
So I think this is mixed good enough.
Would you say?
- [Esther] Yeah. - Yeah.
So then let's pour in.
We're gonna use this spoon and the jar
and scoop in the honey.
- [Esther] Yeah.
- Ooh, it's so thick.
- [Esther] Yeah.
- See if we can get it in there.
Scoop it.
- Come on. (Both chuckling)
- Get outta there.
So we get all the honey
'cause we want it to be nice and sweet.
- [Esther] Yeah.
- [Chelsea] All the honey in there.
And then I'll pour the milk.
- [Esther] Yes.
Then we have one egg ready for you.
(egg thudding)
- [Esther] Now.
- [Chelsea] I think that's good.
(egg crackling)
Oh yeah.
So what do you think makes daddy's cornbread so good?
- I don't know.
- You don't know?
It's probably a secret ingredient he'd never tell us, huh?
- Yeah.
- He wants to keep the best cornbread in the house.
(Esther and Chelsea giggling)
But you're doing a great job stirring.
I think we probably wanna start until all the lumps are gone
and everything is mixed together.
- [Esther] Yeah.
- [Chelsea] You've got a good mix going on here.
- Thank you.
And so we're gonna see, Ooh, I feel it's warm.
- This- - It's warm, yeah.
So we're gonna pour this into the skillet
so we can cook our cornbread.
Are you ready?
- Yeah.
- I wonder if we're gonna hear sizzle.
(batter sizzling)
(Esther giggling)
It's like a little sizzle.
- [Esther] Yeah.
- So we're gonna put it in the skillet
and then we'll cover it with a lid
and let it cook for just a few minutes
and then we'll be ready to eat.
(hands swooshing) (Chelsea giggles)
- Yes!
(uprising music)
Well here it is.
We got this cornbread all done with the pretty flowers on it
from the garden.
I think it looks really nice.
Yeah? - Yeah.
- We did a pretty good job.
You ready to taste it?
- Yeah.
- Should we cheers our forks?
Cheers.
(Esther and Chelsea giggles)
Let's see what it tastes like.
Hmm, you did a good job.
I'm gonna take another piece and while I'm eating
you can tell me, what we talked about daddy
a little bit earlier,
but who else is in your family?
- Mm.
You. - Am I in your family?
- Yes. - Oh, okay.
- And Josiah and Benjamin.
- Josiah and Benjamin.
Who are they?
They're my brothers.
Mm. So you had me and daddy and your two brothers.
I think we'll have to take this plate of cornbread
out of here.
So we should probably go, yeah.
All right, well let's say bye to our friends first, yeah.
Bye - Bye.
- Thank you guys for joining us.
- That cornbread looked delicious.
- Mm-hmm.
- I'll share that recipe with Mama Possum and
(Possum gasps)
then we can both have the same tradition.
- We sure can, Possum.
There's another tradition that I think we should try out
with our friends.
It's something that we heard about in today's story.
- Hmm, well, I remember he talked about canoeing.
(Possum gasps) (Aunty Lena giggling)
Are we gonna paddle in a canoe?
- No, Possum, not today.
We are going to make a lei.
A lei is a symbol of love and friendship
and a way to honor people on special occasions.
- Oh yes, for graduation, like in the book.
Lei's are so pretty.
Will our lei's be made outta flowers?
- Lei's are traditionally made with flowers,
but lots of other items can be used too.
Let's see what materials Miss Olivia is using
with our friends at the Nepantla Cultural Arts Gallery.
(uprising music)
- Hi friends.
My name is Miss Olivia and we are here
at the Nepantla Cultural Arts Gallery.
We are focusing on family today.
And as we talk about family,
we're gonna explore an art project
that ties us all together.
We are going to be making a lei.
So a lei is actually like a circle shape
and it has different things on it, like flowers.
Some people put candy or even money on their lei's.
And really what a lay signifies or what it means
is it's just a symbol of family,
symbol of just people that you love.
And it's how we honor those
that may be in our family as well.
Those who've passed on,
or maybe those that are still with us
that we really look up to.
So tell me, what do you think family is?
I'd like to think family is about people
who love and care about me.
People that I can rely on,
people that I love to spend time with.
And you know, family doesn't always have to be people
that you're related to,
it could be your best friend, it could be your dog.
Whoever you love and care about
can be a part of your family.
So as we're thinking on those things today,
let's go ahead and tie that in with our art project.
So first thing, you will need some supplies.
So we wanna make sure we have some scissors handy.
Please make sure that you guys are using kids safe scissors
or have an adult help you.
And then we also have some string here.
Now if you don't have any string,
you can always use things like shoelaces or yarn,
whatever you have that you can tie things together.
And of course we have lots of tissue paper,
I have different colors here.
And you can use whatever color you like.
You can use your favorite color.
And just to add a little bit more pizzazz to mine,
I have some fun stickers.
But feel free, you can add things like glitter,
you can color on it,
whatever it is that you wanna do to make your lay stand out.
All right, so as we're getting started,
the first thing that I want you guys to know and remember,
that art has no rules and it has no boundaries.
So there's never a right or wrong with art.
It's all about you and how you choose to express yourself.
Okay?
All right, so let's start.
I'm gonna grab some tissue paper and you know,
I'm kind of feeling some pink today
and I think I wanna mix in some blue.
So I'm gonna grab my pink tissue paper
and we're gonna need to have really long pieces
to help us tie.
So I have my tissue paper already folded up
and so I'm just gonna take the end
just right out of the package.
And I'm just gonna start cutting really small strips,
actually kind of medium size,
like they're about like an inch thick
and they're actually pretty long.
So I'm gonna unfold it once I cut my strip off
and just kind of measure.
So you can cut in between your strips,
whatever works for you,
and you can really make your lei
as long and as wide as you'd like to.
So I'm gonna make my pieces about this long and this wide.
So I've got some pink and now I'm gonna cut out some blue.
So the same thing, I'm just cutting out some wide pieces.
The cool thing about this is you can make different shapes,
you can make different sizes, doesn't matter.
It'll all turn out the same and it'll be amazing.
So next we'll wanna grab some string.
So as I unravel my string,
I definitely wanna think about how long I want my lei to be.
Kind of thinking, maybe I want it to be,
maybe like all the way maybe to like
the top of my belly button.
Or maybe if you want like a shorter necklace,
you can do that too.
But whatever size works.
But I'm gonna make mine,
I like my lei's to hang a little bit.
So I'm gonna make it just about this long.
And then I'm gonna tie my ends together.
(uprising music)
And then I'm gonna tie it in a knot.
And I'm gonna go ahead and start timing tissue paper on.
So I'm going to take my first piece,
and actually I've got two layers here
and I'm gonna keep them layered
because it'll make my lei feel and seem really full.
So I'm twisting my lei,
I'm twisting my tissue paper,
just so it helps me to be able to tie it
and it'll make it look like a nice little bow.
So here I am wrapping my tissue paper around this string
and I'm going to knot my tissue paper.
And wallah, I've got my first part of my lei.
And what you're gonna do is
you can do any kind of color pattern that you want.
You can do one side blue, one side pink.
You can mix 'em up however you want to express yourself
through your lay.
So I'm gonna do some pink pieces here.
So for those of you that are still learning
how to tie knots,
I wanna give you a little quick how to, on how to do that.
So after I'm twisting my tissue paper,
I'm grabbing my string in one hand
and I'm putting my tissue paper underneath, like this.
So I'm holding them together with my thumb
just so I can keep it in place and know how to tie it.
So I'm gonna take one end in this hand
and the other in the other hand.
And I'm going to cross them over,
kind of like you would like tying like little bunny ears.
So I'm gonna cross it over like this
and then I'm gonna take this piece underneath
and swing it through this big hole
until I have it on the other end.
So it should look like you have one end of your tissue paper
in one hand and the other and the other hand.
So as I'm getting ready,
I'm going to slowly pull my tissue paper
and you guys see how the knot is slowly closing in.
Now this is the part I was talking about
that can be kind of hard.
So I'm gonna use my fingers
to help me close this knot together.
So I'm gonna put my thumb in my finger underneath
to keep it steady and I'm gonna pull one in
and then I'm gonna switch.
And sometimes you have to use both hands
to help you pull your knot through.
So the reason why we wanna make sure
that we're tying it this way
and being really gentle
is because we want our tissue paper to stay in place,
but it's also tissue paper so it rips really easily.
So we definitely wanna be careful,
but we want it to be secure enough
so that it doesn't slide around.
So one thing I love about this project
is that you can do this with your family.
You can do this with a group of people that you love.
And you guys can also take turns.
You can have somebody hold the string for you.
You can have somebody help you twist your tissue paper.
But it's definitely a fun activity
that you guys can do together.
So I think this looks good so far.
So instead of me finishing this entire thing,
I actually brought one that I already made
and I wanted to share it with you.
So when you're finished,
your leg could look something like mine.
And if it doesn't, that's okay too.
So I found some rainbow stickers
that I'm going to add onto my lei.
So see I added a nice little rainbow sticker.
Well friends here is my finished lei.
Isn't this so cool?
I'm gonna put it on.
So how did today's project make you feel?
Did it make you think about family,
who you consider as family?
I know it made me think about the people
that I consider family,
all of my loved ones who support me
and who care about me a lot.
Well, I hope you guys had a lot of fun today.
I did too.
And I just wanna thank you guys for joining.
Bye friends.
(cheerful music)
- Why can't you tell an egg a joke?
Because it will crack up.
- Why was the rope in time out?
Because it was being knotty.
- Guess what Possum?
- What Aunty Lena?
- Our friends made a lei just for you.
(Aunty Lena giggles)
(Possum gasps)
I'm gonna put it on you and see how gorgeous you look.
Oh, that's great.
- Oh wow.
Oh, thank you friends.
- You know many Hawaiians keep their lei's for a long time.
They may drape it over a photo or hang it in a special place
to remember the wonderful feeling of being honored.
- Oh, then I'm gonna keep this lei
to remind me of our friends.
- That's one of the joys of friends and family.
They help us feel loved and supported.
- Well that's how you make me feel, Aunty lena.
- You make me feel that way too.
Thank you Possum.
- Aww, well thank you for choosing me
to be in your family of choice.
- You are welcome Possum.
And friends, thank you for taking time
to look, listen and learn with us today.
Remember, you are the best you that the world will ever see.
- Bye for now.
- Bye-bye.
(joyful music)
- [Possum] It's time for movement minute.
(jolly music)
- Hi friends.
Welcome to our movement minute.
My name is Coach Josh and we're gonna move your body
and your imagination.
So today I want you to imagine that you're a squat monster.
What's a squat monster?
They're big monsters that live in garbage heaps.
And what are they doing in garbage heaps?
They crush garbage.
So you're gonna come up and step and and crush them on.
There's a giant car.
You're gonna crush it 'cause you're a giant squat monster.
Step up and squat and crush and crush and crush.
Now I want you to get down to your best squat monster pose
and gimme a squat monster roar.
(Josh roaring)
Louder.
(Josh roaring)
Lower.
(Josh roaring)
Louder.
(Josh roaring)
And shake it out.
Thank you for coming today.
That's our movement minute.
(jolly music)
- [Aunty Lena] Please stay tuned after the credits
for Aunty Lena's parent tip.
(jolly music)
(uprising jolly music)
Families have always come in different shapes, sizes,
faiths, food choices, colors and cultures.
I'm thankful to those who taught me early in life
that family can be related to me by blood or by choice.
Many cultures honor elders with the title of Miss or Mister
Aunty or Uncle because it is seen as disrespectful
to call an elder by their first name.
And those of us who are honored as Aunties and uncles
take this responsibility to heart
because no matter if one is born or chosen into a family,
the bottom line is that all caring adults already know
what research supports.
That is, family engagement is an important building block
that helps early learners thrive.
Families offer unconditional love and support.
This love and support helps create a consistent environment
between school, community and home.
Family engagement is foundational
in providing early learners with feeling safe and secure.
It's from this safe and secure experience
that children are prepared to launch into the work
of being the best that they can be.