It was midnight before we finally got settled and started dozing off last night, so this morning was a bit slow. The tears were still flowing, in sadness and, in part at least, in shear exhaustion. It was also Unity Day at school today and there was a big, coordinated walk to school this morning that Eve and I completely missed. We had our orange clothes and signs ready, but we couldn’t rally ourselves early enough to get there. I got Eve to school just in time, then came home to rally Lex. We let him sleep a bit, thinking he could go in late, but that never happened. He couldn’t get it together and every time he thought about school the tears started flowing again. He begged for a day at home where he could just read and relax. We gave it to him.
The point of this post, however, is that we have an awesome school! There was so much orange it was amazing! All week I’ve been reading books about being proud of yourself (this month’s theme is “Let your True Colors Shine”) and books about bullying and we have been talking about how the two relate. The kids are great and already know so much! In some of the stories we read the kids are bullies are just awful and the kids at school are amazed that anyone would do that. I love hearing the ideas and seeing what strong advocateds they are for one another. (It’s not perfect, of course, they are kids after all, but the school community is so strong it radiates through them al1!)
We missed the walk to school, but we were there for the assembly at the end. We did the unity chain like we have in past years, and two kids read a book called “One” (which I need to get in the library!) Then kids from an enrichment group I run showed the Scratch projects they made. I was very proud of them! They come to me once a week and we work on Scratch programming and I love seeing how much they love to learn and how quick they are to help one another (thank goodness because I don’t know much about Scratch at all!) I told them that if they wanted to share their projects on Unity Day they could, and three groups did!
Each kid in the school writes a strong positive message on a link and they all form together to be our annual Unity Day chain, which is then hung in the lobby for all to read.
My group of enrichment kiddos. See Eve on the left. :) On the far right is our nationally acclaimed school counselor! She won “School Counselor of the Year” for the state of Vermont this year and has been chosen as one of five finalists for “National School Counselor of the Year.” She and the principal get to go to Washington DC for an awards ceremony in the spring.
Select Chorus sang “True Colors” for the crowd. I tried to get a video but failed miserably.
I feel a little rambley right now and my thoughts aren’t flowing smoothly, so I’m going to stop here. I’m just so proud of my kids, my school, and this amazing community! I couldn’t ask for a better place to raise my kiddos. (look how cute they were two years ago!)