Elementary school open house

Andrew and Claire have anxiously been awaiting the art fair and open house at their school.  Each class does a different type of art and they display it in the library.  They frame each piece and you can purchase it if you want.  Each framed piece was $32, which I thought was too much.  They give the art back even if you don't purchase anything.  I told them that I would get a frame for their art when they brought it home.  It was neat to see the art from all of the classes. 

 

 

Andrew's class did origami sailboats which they glued to a background that they prepared.

 

 

I tried to get Claire to pose under her painting, but she wanted to talk to her friends instead.

 

 

Our first stop was Andrew's class room.  His teacher had all of their science projects on display along with many other things they have been working on.  Hanging from the ceiling is a picture of Charles Lindbergh with a dodecahedron underneath.  On the dodecahedron he wrote several facts about Charles' life.   

 

 He had work on display.  He is very proud that his reading level is 4.7 and he is only in 3rd grade.

 

His teacher also had is Denmark report on display

 

Here is the doll he made with my mom to represent Denmark.  How do you make a cute doll out of a clothespin?

 

Here is the complete map with every one's dolls and countries marked.  It was interesting to see all of the different dolls and science projects in his class.  His teacher said he did a really good job on his oral report for his science class.  She said he is very good and helpful in class.

 

 

All year they have been working on a timeline of their lives.  You can see that he has baby pictures of himself on the left, then he and Claire in the center and Grant farther to the right.  He had to think of milestones in his life and put those on his timeline.  We have definitely had some challenges this year with his homework, but he has also learned a lot.  Most recently he has been doing long division with and without remainders.  It seems like he isn't old enough to be doing math like that yet.

 

Our next stop was Claire's classroom.  She was so excited to show us everything.  Unfortunately, Danny and I had to visit the classroom separately  because Grant wanted to run free outside.

 

Everyone in Claire's class made a picture of themselves that was taped to their chairs.  She made sure to tell me that hers had green eyes and blond hair.

 

 

Mrs. Kim had each child create a guess who sheet that she taped to the whiteboard.  The kids had a great time trying to get their family to guess which one was them.  Claire is good at reading and likes to swim.

 

A mosaic fish, "A good fish friend shares their toy."

 

Colorful kites.

 

A writing sample. 

 

 

Mrs. Kim had each of the kids write about what they liked in Kindergarten and she put them in a book.

 

Claire liked Kindergarten because she learned how to do math.

 

This has been her cubby this year.  She has really loved her teachers.  She had two because Mrs. Kim went on maternity leave for a few months.  In addition to math, she also really likes to read.  She reads in bed at night and will often bring a book if she knows that we are going to go somewhere and have to wait.  I told her that next year she will have different kids in her class because they mix them up.  She did not like that idea at all, so we will have to work on that this summer. 

 

Mother's Day

This year for Mother's Day the kids made me some very thoughtful handmade things.  They were all beyond excited for me to open them up.  Claire made a lot of different cards and books.  The first one was that her love for me grows everyday.  She made this in kindergarten and they also planted a plant.  More on the plant farther down.  The card folds so that when you open it up it looks like the flower is growing.

 

Andrew made up this cute poem himself and made the frame at school.  So sweet.

 

Claire also made a book all about all of the things she likes to do with me.  The one below says that I can bake cookies with chocolate chips.

 

Here is a picture she drew of me, complete with green eyes and all.  She also drew in herself on the left and Grant on the right.  Please note the lovely necklace she drew in.

 

This was the last page of the book, I like how she signed it love Claire.

 

Andrew planted the petunia in the back at scouts and wrote on the pot, "I love you as much as these flowers."  He just really like flowers!  The decorated can below Andrew's is Claire flower that she planted.  In her valiant effort to hide it in her backpack so that I wouldn't see it before Sunday, she broke off the leaves and the flower.  I haven't had the heart to tell her that I don't think it will grow back. 

 

Andrew also filled in these questions.  The most interesting thing was that "we like to do homework together".  I was really surprised because this is usually not the high point of any day or week.

 

 

I was really surprised to see this present that Grant brought home from day care.   They had the kids paint the white matte and then they took a picture with them holding a sign saying Happy Mother's Day, I love you!  So cute!  I wish I had gotten him a haircut before this picture though. 

 

I think that it really is true that you appreciate the homemade gifts from the kids much better than something they could buy.  They are so thoughtful and sweet when they put their minds to it.

Andrew's science project

Andrew did a science project last year in 2nd grade, so I thought we were done for a couple of years.  Nope, they had to do one again this year.  I heard from another parent that they have to do one every year!  Not that I think that this is a bad thing, but let's face, it who does most of the work?  Danny came up with several options for science projects and we let Andrew choose which one he wanted to do.  He chose one that has to do with how different colors absorb sunlight.  His hypothesis was: I thought black would be the hottest.

 

The first step was to prepare the jars. We got some jars from my parent's house and Andrew spray painted them in the backyard.  This was, by far, his favorite part.  Claire and Grant wanted to help as well which caused some issues.

 

 

On the day that we were doing the experiment, Andrew filled each jar with 2 cup of water.

 

 

 

When all of the jars are ready we brought the little table to the backyard and lined up all of the jars and covered them with foil. 

We measured the temperature (with Grandpa's fancy thermometer) every hour for four hours from 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm.  They all started out with the temperature being 76 degrees.

The hottest temperature was 106 for black after 4 hours.  Silver was the coolest after 4 hours at only 93 degrees.  The colors from the coolest to hottest were silver, white, light blue, pink, green, orange, red, and black.

Then came the time to prepare the board.  Andrew wanted to type up all of the items himself, which he did over a 3 hour period.  Many distractions later, he finished and we cut all of the papers with the paper cuter.  This is the final board with the pictures on it.  He also had to do a presentation to his class about his project.  Hopefully Andrew learned as much about colors and sunlight as Danny and I did.

 

Walk A Thon



 

A couple of weeks ago, Andrew and Claire had a walk a thon at school.  Andrew had done one before, so he told Claire what to expect and what to do.  All of the classes K-3 started at the same time.  I was warm but not too hot.  Everyone was very excited to get a walk a thon T shirt.  They had it set up really well where there was a water station and every 10 laps they got something.  They marked their laps on the green paper that is hanging around each of their necks.

 

 

Throughout the walk they walked with different groups of people.  They wanted the kids to walk and not run which was hard for some of them.

 

Here is Andrew's teacher Mrs. Barth.

 

Andrew and Claire even walked together for a while.

 

 

 

It is blurry, but here is Claire's teacher, Mrs. Kim (on the right).

 

At 10 laps, they got a Rice Krispy treat.  They also had people misting the kids with water. 

 

The line to get their cards marked sometimes got backed up and they had to wait.

 

Andrew and his friend Vinnie who he met through baseball.

 

 

Claire and her friend Jordan from her class.

 

Here is Claire's class afterwards.  They all had red faces and were hot.  They did a great job though!  Andrew ended up walking 27 laps and Claire did 32.  He said that they let the kindergartners run some of the laps.  They could also walk more laps at lunch if the wanted, so I am not sure if Andrew did that or not.  Overall, they had a great time, plus they always love a free t-shirt.

 

 

Claire's birthday

About a week before Claire's birthday, she went to the dentist for a check up.  He said that she had a loose tooth.  Claire hadn't said anything about her tooth.  Then one night a few days later she was eating an apple and said that it was too hard to eat the apple with a loose tooth, so she pulled it out!  She was excited to have finally lost a tooth, since many of her friends had already lost one. 



 

 

Claire had quite the, almost month of, birthday celebrations.  First up was cupcakes for her class.  She asked me a few days before her birthday the following question, "Mom, you are bringing cupcakes to my class like the rest of the moms do, right?"  My response, "umm, yes of course!"  So I brought them on the afternoon of her birthday.  The class sung to her and she loved it.

 

 

Then, that night we went to dinner at a restaurant of her choosing.  She chose Chevy's because they give you free ice cream for your birthday.  She actually didn't want the hat and was totally embarrassed by the singing. 

 

Then we went to Grandma's house to open this big pink present.  

It was a pink razor scooter - just what she wanted!  She loves it and it quite good at riding it. 

On the following Sunday, she got to choose what to have for Sunday dinner.  She chose chicken rice and corn.  We all sung to her again, around the pan of brownies.

 

And then finally, two weeks after her birthday, we had her party.  She could not wait for it to happen.  She wanted to have it at her gymnastics place, and this was the soonest they could do the party.  She invited most of her class from school and friends from church as well.  About 15 kids were there.  They started out with warm up activities.  

 

They quickly moved on to activities and fun games.

 

 

As you can see from her flushed face, it was quite hot in there.  She has learned so many new skills since January and really loves going to class on Monday nights.

 

After baseball, Andrew and Danny arrived with the pizza.  Andrew even got to try a few of the activities.

 

 

 

They posed all of the kids for a group shot at the end of the session.

 

Then we had pizza, strawberries and lots of drinks.

 

 

I made cupcakes instead of a cake because I thought it would be easier. 

 

 

 

I was asking a friend at work if she had any favor ideas for the gymnastics theme.  She suggested a candy lei.  I went and got some medals at the party store (I wish they were larger) and Danny and I stayed up really late the night before the party and made these leis.  The kids loved them.  We didn't take any pictures of her opening the rest of her gifts, but she got a lot of things that she really liked.  What is not to like about Hello Kitty nail polish?  Happy 6th Birthday Claire!