Jr Olympics

Each year the school has a field day. They call it Jr Olympics. They have several running racings: 800m, 400m and 100yd dash. They also do discus, shot-put, long jump, softball throw, parachute, sponge relay, etc. 

I knew Emma had signed up to do the 800m, 400m, and the long jump (3-5 graders get to sign up for 3 events). 

I failed to realize that he 800m was the day before the actual Jr Olympics, so I missed Emma's run. I was told she started out 2nd to last and stayed that way until the last lap, keep a steady pace the entire time. One by one the other racers tuckered out and she won the race!

On Friday I knew I wouldn't be able to volunteer to help with the various activities since Henry would be less than helpful. So I volunteered to help with food for the volunteers! I was asked to bring 15-18 sandwiches. So, I spent the morning making sandwiches and missed Emma doing her 400m and long jump! By the time I got there I was able to hang with Mo's class doing the parachute

Emma's class doing the parachute:

Emma's class waiting for other students to do shot-put and discus. The waiters started up a game of duck, duck, goose and loved having Henry play along.

5th Grade History Fair

Bud for the 5th grade history project had to pick a famous person. He initially chose Benjamin Franklin but after some slight persuading chose Albert Einstein. I figured choosing a physicist when we have a physicist in the house (N8's degree is in physics) would be a better choice.

It's been a month long project with a written report, including a bibliography, cover and title page as well as a presentation board and oral report.

Last night was the history fair and parents are students could come and see the presentations boards. Students could dress up as their famous person for extra credit.

Here's the board in the making.

And it's complete (and trying out the costume!)

A little silly!

Another boy in the other 5th grade clase (who happens to live on our street) also chose Albert Einstein!

He did an awesome job!!

Boxes, boxes and more boxes...

I'm the Box Top Coordinator for our school. That means I'm in charge of collecting, counting and submitting the Box Tops for our school. It's something that I can mostly handle from home and allows my to still feel involved with the school since they usually don't let younger siblings into the classroom to help.

In October I sent off our big shipment and in December we got our check, just over $1200!! We use that money to help get the teacher additional school supplies so it doesn't come out of their pocket. So, last week I put a note in each of their boxes with a list of items they could choose from (as well as an "other" line for items not listed). I had a place for their name (although one teacher forgot!) and reminded them "if you ask you shall receive, I cannot purchase you items until you tell me what you need". On Thursday I placed an very large order through Amazon, Oriental Trading and Becker's School Supply.

Then the boxes started coming!! Lots of boxes!! And there are still more to come!

This tall box is all Kleenex!

The kids have loved playing with the big box and so have the kitties!

Where's Puma?

 

 

The Box Top program is such a simple and easy way to "fundraise" without asking parents to purchase expensive trinkets they will never use. Yay for Box Tops!!

Mustache day...

This past Friday was a spirit day at school and the theme was Mustache day!! I was still feeling pretty under the weather, so N8 took charge of applying the mustaches to the kids. He found a brown eyeliner in my makeup bag and went to work!

This coming Friday is "Bling day". We'll see what we come up with for that!

Santa came to Preschool!

Mo was lucky enough to have Santa come to preschool!! And Henry got to see him too!

School Christmas...

I love that our kids go to a school that celebrates Christmas! This year Emma's class sang Jingle Bells in Spanish. I would write the word in Spanish, but I'm sure I would spell it wrong, so I'm not going to!

She was very excited to sing and to see N8, Mo, Henry and myself sitting in the audience!

A gal at school that does the pictures for the yearbook, Bambi, took this awesome pic!

Benjamin's class sang Silent Night in German and then the Song of Peace:

They both did an awesome job!

Pow Wow!!

Yesterday I spent my morning frying up some Indian Fry Bread at the 5th grade Pow Wow! The night before I made 5 or 6 batches (I lost count!) of dough. I messed up 2 batches, oops! The kids all really enjoyed coming in and smashing and stretching their dough and watching it be fried up into yumminess!

Lots of kids asked if we bought it or how it was made and were very surprised when I said that I had made part of the dough. I explained that it was much like making homemade bread or pizza dough. Most kids had never had homemade bread or pizza before! Crazy I know.

This is me and Bud's teachers husband. We were the official fryers for the day!

Bud and his Best Bud enjoyed eating the fry bread, playing games, making dream catchers, headbands, and sand art!

Hopefully I'll be out of Fry Bread duty for a few years  until Emma is in 5th grade. It was fun, but very tiring!

First day of Pre-K...

 

Today Mo started pre-k!! He was not super excited. He says that he likes to stay home with me and Henry and play the Wii! Despite this he still enjoyed his first day. The city program has changed a little this year and is now 3 days (Tue, Wed, Thurs) and includes some music and tumbling which should be fun.

 

First Grade Water Day....

Today was the 1st grade water day at our school. They had fun games, hot dogs, shave ice and to finish it off the Fire Department came for a demonstration! First they went through some safety and over the fireman's clothing.

Then came the fun!! Water!!

Emma had a blast!!!

School wraps-up...

The school year is quickly coming to a close. One more week of full days and then one week of minimum days. Last night was the elementary schools open house. We got to check out the classroom and see some of the kids work. Bud made a PowerPoint presentation about Wolves:

His teacher Mr Grizet is retiring this year. We have been very happy with him as a teacher and are disappointed he won't be around when Emma goes into the 4th grade!

Emma has the same teacher for first grade that Bud had for Kindergarten. We have loved having her as a teacher and look forward to Mo having her in a few years! She puts together a memory book of much of their work throughout the school year that the kids get to take home at the end of the year.

Our fingers are crossed that we get as awesome of a teacher for next year!

Today was Mo's last day of Park Preschool. He has grown a lot and really made some fun friendships. Today they got to go to the city pool and then picnic after. Next year he will be in Pre-k!

Nerd Day...

Today was a "nerd" day at school. Emma made sure we had an outfit for her to wear. First she needed to know what a nerd was. I actually found it difficult to define for her:

Me:"It's a geeky smart person"

Emma: "What's geeky"

Me: "Well someone that's kinda dorky"

Emma: "What's dork"

Me: "It's someone that's smart that dresses silly"

Emma: "Oh ok!"

So here's what we came up with!!

Henry really wanted his picture taken too!

On a mission....

Fourth graders in the state of California study California Missions. Over the Christmas break Bud was assigned to make a model of the San Juan Capistrano Mission (he will be writing a report and doing an oral report as well). Luckily one of the books we checked out from the library had very useful information on building a model!! We started it yesterday and finished it up today Woohoo!

Bud using an exacto knife and hot glue gun was interesting, but we made it through without any injury!

Measuring:

Cutting:

Assembling:

The mission before roofs and grass:

More gluing:

And cutting:

And it's complete!

Let's hope the report goes this smoothly!