It hit me today that I’m rapidly running out of vacation. I’ve had the luxury of being home and “not working” since Christmas, but starting Monday I’ll be back on the job. I’m excited, of course, and I’m sure it will be great, but I do mourn a bit for the days when everyone goes away and I get “me time.” :) So how am I celebrating my last day of summer vacation (not counting the weekend)? By working! :/ Hmmm…. We had a very busy day yesterday and the kids really wanted a “no plans day” today, which means they are doing their own thing and I’m getting work done on the computer. I updated the library interface, updated my Scope and Sequence document, sent some coordination emails, and did a required 2hr “Mandatory Reporter” training. Nothing like child abuse photos to help celebrate the end of vacation! Sheesh!
I need to turn this thing off now! Maybe I can talk Eve into running some errands with me… fabric store and pet store… both school errands! Welcome to teaching!
After a rocky start to “band camp” (“this one time, at band camp…”), Lex ended being a rock star!
He had been hesitant about it all summer and we frequently discussed why I had signed him up and what would happen if he didn’t like it. He agreed to go though and give it a chance. Monday morning he was less than excited and ended up in tears. We stood in the main entry to the high school (where the camp was), got him checked in (barely) and ended up in a corner with me talking him down. Ugh. Like a kindergarten drop off all over again. One of the teachers running it, who also happens to be the middle school band director and a great guy, came over and said, “This must be Lex!” Hahaha… I think he was prepped! He and another teacher were amazing with Lex though and got him on his way. She texted me mid-morning and said that he was doing great! I love it when teachers send that little update.
Lex came home Monday and said it wasn’t the best thing ever, but he’d go back again on Tuesday. Just DON’T sign him up again next year. By Thursday he was telling me about their plans for next year, and by Friday he was rocking the house! They had a concert Friday afternoon to show off the things they learned. It was so much fun. Amazing what a group of middle school kids and a few music teachers can accomplish in five short days!
He looks so little standing up there with all the big kids! He also looks angry, but really it’s his focused face.
Lex rocking the snare drum:
Eve wore her grumpy pants to the concert and spent most of it like this. That’s what happens when you eat nothing but Goldfish all day! Eventually she managed to eat her sandwich (from lunch!) and regained her sense of humor. Thankfully!
I love his dancing! He knows this song well:
Lex did a surprise solo!! I couldn’t believe it! A bunch of kids did them and the director said they were going to make up the solos on the spot. I leaned over to Alan and made a joke about Lex never doing an solo…. but he did!!
It was fantastic! I was soo proud of him. He was rocking and rolling and dancing and he got sooooo many compliments after the show! He just looked so darn happy to be there. It was amazing!!
The grand finale. Lex is in the back. You can just barely see his leg and red sneaker to the right of the directors leg. I think he was smart to chose percussion. He has lots of room to move and dance and do his thing.
They ended the week with an ice cream social and people kept coming over to him to congratulate him and compliment his performance. Even some students did! We enjoyed our ice cream then went home and crashed!
Have I mentioned lately that I got a job?! Yay! I’m pretty excited about it!
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Today while Lex was at camp, Eve and I spent the day in the library! I met with the out-going librarian for awhile, spent some time rearranging the furniture, met with a finance guy to talk about retirement savings, and spent a lot of time discussing the fish with Eve.
My grungy new fish tank
It seems I have inherited a fish tank with six South American Cichlids. I tried to pawn them off on other teachers last week, but no one wanted them. Eve and I did some research today and learned that this breed (is that even the word for fish??) is “toothy and agressive” and doesn’t play well with others. In fact, it tends to eat other fish unfortunate enough to be placed in the same tank. We spent some time yesterday at the pet store and I mostly walked away with a confirmed feeling that fish are creepy. Eve is pretty excited about the fish tank though, so I guess we will learn.
Eve put all of the extra plants and “accessories” she could find into the tank. It’s pretty full now!
It is such a big and amazing space, and I have no grand vision for it, so I think I’m going to have to just spend time there over the next few weeks and see how it feels. We did some rearranging, created a separate drawing center and reading center (which were combined last year) and Eve was full of advice about what to do. At one point I asked, “Do the tables go here?” to which she replied, “It’s your library mom, they go wherever you want them to!” She’s awesome!
Today was the last day of school for this kiddos and the last day of elementary school for Lex!! They had their end of year ceremony and 5th grade graduation. It was so sweet. He has such a wonderful class! It makes me sad that they’ll be separated into different teams in the middle school.
5th graders enter the gym to great applause. Everyone else (all the classes, plus 5th grade parents and families) were already seated.
There were a lot of awards to sit through. Fortunately everything moved along pretty quickly.
Lex won an award for “Most Improved Musician.”
As he walked back to his seat, his classmates all called his name and put out their hands for high-fives. It was soooo sweet! I didn’t see them do that for anyone else. They all knew about his musical challenges and I think they were proud to see him rewarded for his success. I love his class.
Where there are words, Lex will read them. :)
When I asked Lex later if he was surprised to win a prize and he said, “Not really.” I laughed at his honest, then he clarified, “I was surprised that it was a music award though.” I love his confidence!
These two teachers are retiring after 25 and 30 years in the district. They got many standing ovations. Mrs. Torrey, in the white sweater, is Lex’s teacher this year, and Mrs. Shattie , in the blue dress, was his teacher in 3rd grade. Both are excellent, caring teachers and will be missed by many in the district!
Each kid got a little “diploma” saying they successfully completed 5th grade.
Good bye elementary school!! I’ll have to dig up his “first day of school” photo and compare them. Later.
When Lex said, “Mom, will you take a picture of us?” I said, “Oh yes, of course!!” :)
Oh yeah, this little lady moved up to 4th grade today. She is exited. The 4th grade works on an “open-classroom, co-teaching” model in which two fourth grade teachers (in years past they were in individual classrooms) co-teach, sharing the class and work-load. One is an accomplished math teacher and the other a recognized ELA teacher, and they have very compatible personalities. We attended an open house last week to learn more about the model and how well it works for them last year, their first year co-teaching. Eve is pretty excited that all of her friends will be in her class.
She wanted to make sure Daisy was in the picture with her. :)
Eve got very excited that Daisy looked at the camera too. :)
It was a big night at school with the final concert of the year, and Lex’s final concert in elementary school! This year they split it into two concerts, K-2 last week and 3-5 this week. It made it much easier to find a seat and see your kid! Eve was ready to go in her black striped “jazzy” dress, and Lex even made his debut on the concert risers! I am so proud of them both!
The 3rd graders all made their own instruments from recycled containers.
Lex was excited for his band songs. Percussion is fun because you get to play so many different instruments and sometimes you get to switch instruments in the middle of a song. Lex really enjoys the team aspect of percussion as well. Everyone is working together in that back row!
Lex having a little fun with the symbols. He tells me about the various instrument all the time and some of them I have trouble picturing from his description (not the symbols, of course, I know what those are!) so he told me he would hold up each instrument in the concert so I could see it. :)
This concert, for the first time ever, Lex even stood up and sang with his class! There have been many emails in the past few months between his music teacher, his team, and his parents, all trying to help him feel comfortable and prepared for this concert. We had plans and plans for plans. Lex agreed to stand with his group, and *maybe* mouth the words since he “accidentally learned all the words.” This afternoon he said he might do small hand motions. This evening he totally go into it and had a blast!!!
Lex (in green) signing with the 5th graders. :)
Wearing shades for the final song (I totally forgot what it’s called and the kids are asleep and can’t remind me).
What a fun night! Mema and Grandpa Tom got to come share in the fun. Lex got so many compliments. I think he counted twelve comments, plus “Mom’s counts twice because she kissed me in public,” he told the school councelor. We all had a good laugh!
Plus, on the personal note, I got so many congratulations from the teachers on my new job. I’m so excited that everyone is excited to have me on board! They like me, they like me! Eeee! But enough about me, the kids did awesome, the music teacher is amazing, and I love our school!
In 5th grade the kids do a big biography project that culminates in Bio Fair, where all the kids dress and act as their person and show off their display boards. Lex chose Dean Kamen, a local(ish) inventor who invented the home dialysis machine, a wheelchair that raises to standing position and can climb stairs, the Segway, and a robotic arm that can move with electrical impulses from the brain. He’s a pretty cool guy.
Hello Dean Kamen.
Shoulders like his daddy.
He looks good in a button down shirt. I doubt we’ll see it again though! :)
The Bio Fair runs for an hour and fifteen minutes and during that time each class comes through, as well as parents and families, even some from the general community. Most teachers give their students something to do at Bio Fair, such as write down three facts, or interview three people, or decide who is your favorite and why.
Lex describing “Luke,” Kamen’s prosthetic arm invention.
Eve interviewing Mr. Kamen. :)
Haha… I don’t know what’s going on here, but it looks like he’s in the middle of telling the principal a great story! :)
They had a list of items that were to be included on their display boards, including photos, facts, and an “I Am” poem. Yesterday they recorded themselves reading their “I Am” poems and added them as QR codes to the display boards. They also had to make a Google presentation about their person and add that as a QR code to he board. Here are Lex’s:
Yesterday was our first day of homeschooling. Our trail attempt to see how it goes.
I hadn’t told the school yet, thinking we could just try it first, and Lex said he didn’t want people at school to know, so the plan was to just keep him home. All went well until his teacher responded to my “Lex won’t be in school today” email with “I’m curious as to why. Yesterday he told [his para] that he was going to be out and that you were going to home school him for Tuesdays. Is there something that happens on Tuesdays he is avoiding?” BUSTED! So I sent her a whole reply about what we are thinking of doing. I said I wanted to chat with her in person, but we were going to try one day and see how it went. I got no reply. Now I don’t know who she has told (other teachers? principal?) or what anyone is thinking. So much for keeping it on the DL!
We started the day as usual, then when Eve left for school, Lex and I headed down to the basement. I thought it would be good to have some separation and I was concerned if we did schooling upstairs we would feel like we spent the entire day at the dining room table. Downstairs we began school with a discussion of how the day would go and a plan for what he wanted to learn.
Our plan for the day. (I really should crop and edit these pictures before posting. I’m getting blog-lazy!)
His first question was “How does a prism split apart light?” Using a prism, the info that came with it, plus two different science books, we did some experiments!
Setting up the classic “light through water” experiment.
Looking for rainbows
We found some! It was hard to take good pictures though.
Lex learned that each color moves at a different wavelength and when it hits a medium such as water or glass the waves refract (bend) at different angles, thereby causing the light colors to separate. Refraction was a new word for him.
Quick break!
We did some other exploring with the prism and the water as well.
This sheet came with the prism. It’s pretty cool to see what patterns emerge when the light is refracted through the prism.
This experiment brought up the concept of focal point. As you look through the water and move the paper backwards, the arrow appears to flip, pointing left instead of right. We talked about why that happens and how it would be affected with different size containers.
We had a snack break in the morning too, with some reading, of course! After lunch we had some outside time (shoveling the driveway!) and then went back downstairs to look at his second question. “Why are the 7 colors of light what they are? (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet)” This question took us to the Internet for some research. We learned that Isaac Newton first discovered that you can use a prism to split white light into a spectrum. He grouped the visible spectrum into seven colors because he thought there was a significance to the number seven and linked it to seven octaves, seven days of the week, and seven bodies in the sky. He thought they must all have some significance and relation. He also named them the names we use today.
That led us to wonder if all colors we can see (pink, teal, tan, beige, etc) appear somewhere in that spectrum or not. Turns out that they do not. The colors in the visible spectrum are colors made with just one wavelength. Shades and variations of colors require multiple wavelengths. We had a long discussion about that. On Wikipedia we found a drawing that Newton did mapping the colors to musical notes. Lex said, “Hey, I can play the rainbow.” So he did.
Playing the rainbow.
I don’t know why the audio has the static noise.
Lex wrote up his notes from the morning and afternoon sessions.
It’s good to have a key for your notes.
Morning session – light refraction
Afternoon session – visible spectrum
While we were doing experiments in the small office he noticed that his voice reverberated off the bass drum every time he spoke. That got him curious about sound vibrations and he suggested we add that to the list for future study. While he was reading about Newton he paused and asked, “I wonder why they call it octaves, when there are just seven notes? Oct usually means eight.” We added that to the list too. In bed last night he remembered that he had been learning Python (a programming language) with Alan, so we thought it would be fun to have Alan take a day off and they could learn about Python all day. Alan doesn’t know about that yet, so we’ll see. :)
The list is growing. Eve would very much like to be homeschooled too, so she started her own list.
Overall I think it was a successful day. He struggled a bit in the evening because one teacher sent work home for him with Eve, plus he was trying to get his Weekly Write done early, plus he remembered (at 7pm!) that he was supposed to read three chapters, answer some questions, write a summary, AND lead the discussion in his reading group today. He went to bed feeling very overwhelmed. We talked about the fact that he will also have to keep up with his regular school work, but we can allow some time during a homeschool day to work on that as well. At bedtime I asked if he thought homeschooling was still a good idea. He said, “YES!”
The kids had movie night at school tonight. Always a good time! They usually play two movies, one on the big screen in the gym and one on a smaller screen in the music room. Generally one aimed at the older kids and one at the younger kids, but the kids can go to either movie. Tonight it was Minions on the big screen and Home in the music room. Both fun movies!
Minions on the big screen!
They pause the movie in the middle for intermission and all the kids head to the cafeteria for snacks. For tonight I made a big batch of M&M cookies with extra M&Ms! (I had a lot left over from Christmas!) I was standing behind the snack table handing out treats as the kids came through. One of Lex’s classmates came up, looked at the table full of baked goods, and asked which ones I made. He said he always loves the things I bake and said he always loves it when Lex brings treats to school because I bake such yummy things. Another classmate was by his side and threw in a comment about how much he loved the Lego cake I made for Lex’s birthday party. Kid one told kid two, “pick those cookies (pointing at the M&M ones I brought), they will be great, I promise!” That made me feel pretty awesome! :)
M&Ms, with a little bit of cookie dough holding them together. :)
Alan and I had the good fortune to accompany Lex and his classmates on a trip to the Vermont State House today. Everyone was so excited for this day, especially Lex! Our local Rep helped organize the event, along with Lex’s teachers, of course. We were welcomed in an active session of the House and got to watch the proceedings for awhile.
We had great seats to watch the House of Representatives at work!
Looking down at the floor.
Then we got a tour of the State House, including the Senate Chambers and various interesting room.
The Senate was empty, so we sat in there and learned about the three branches of government. Review, really, for these kiddos!
A very cool, and huge, painting of the Civil War.
Amazing stained glass ceiling windows that were in small pieces when they were discovered during the restoration of the building. It took a preservation company almost four years, but they restored them to beautiful condition.
After our tour the kids went to work! Their job was to interview as many people as possible (politicians, lobbyists, general population, etc.), ask them a few scripted questions, and record their answers on an iPad.
Since Alan and I were both chaperoning, he went with Lex’s group and I went with another group of kids. It was neat to see their confidence improve as they approached person after person and did their interviews.
We met Governor Shumlin’s Chief of Staff, Darren Springer.
When the House session took a break we were invited onto the floor to speak directly with the Representatives.
I love how the desks open up in front of each chair. Each Rep has their own place for stuff. I was totally checking out this dude’s desk. :)
Since Lex wasn’t in my group I had to take paparazzi shots of him from afar. :)
When the gavel came down we had to clear out asap!! Back in the lobby we saw the teacher being interviewed by a news crew! My group was super excited by this and wanted to hang around and interview the reporters!
No pressure, Mr. Burns! We’re just going to stare at you and take your picture while you’re being interviewed on TV. :)
My group interviewed both reporters, but then the reporter turned the camera around and asked if he could follow our group. Talk about three very excited girls!
Interviewing Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott with the TV camera rolling!
What a busy and exciting day! I bet it was a tired bus ride home. Lex was pretty excited that we let him take the iPad on the bus. :)
Good bye state house! The kids posed for a final group shot before heading for the bus.
I’m so proud of how well this guy did! He was eager to learn, and eager to participate. He was front and center during the tour, actively listening, and frequently raising his hand to answer questions. Alan said he was even eager to approach strangers and ask them questions! He’s really growing up!
One quick stop at Starbucks and then we head home, with minutes to spare before the kids came home on the bus. :) Busy, but excellent, day!
Hey, check it out! They ran a story about this field trip on the local news tonight! If you watch carefully you can see me at the beginning and Alan at the end. I kinda feel like we crashed Lex’s field trip. I don’t think he minds though. He said it was great having Alan with his group and didn’t seem to concerned about not being on TV.
