Slackwood students send wishes to Hong Kong

A close-up of the Wishing Tree. In May, the kindergarten students in Jamie Kimball’s class at Slackwood Elementary School in Lawrence sent a package of handwritten notes to Hong Kong. The notes contained wishes that a friend of Slackwood parent Vanessa Jerez used to decorate the Wishing Tree, a banyan tree at the entrance of Lam Tsuen, an area of Hong Kong. The notes are attached to an orange for weight and hung on the tree. Legend says that if the wish does not fall down, it will come true. The students in Kimball’s class learned about the Wishing Tree from Kathy Saretzky, the Slackwood librarian who read the class The Wishing Tree, a book by Roseanne Thong. After that, Jerez reached out to a friend in Hong Kong who agreed to decorate the tree for the students. As part of the project, the students researched the Wishing Tree and Hong Kong. They also practiced their writing skills by drafting, revising, peer editing and decorating their wishes.