Tag Archives: School

Only a few days left…

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We are in full end-of-year mode.  Summer goody bags being prepared for classmates, full folders of work and projects coming home every day, spirit week at school, field day and parties, dragging in the morning, and today I even made the crazy decision to bake a ton of cookies to share with everyone on the last day of school.  I graduate in two days and have no more homework, so there’s plenty of time to bake!  We’ll sleep and clean another day… or month.

I’ve started looking at summer plans and it’s filling up fast.  On a related note, we seem to be running out of money just as fast!  We put a halt on spending (after one last purchase – BNL tickets for September!) and now we’ll try to settle into the summer…

Just a few more days!

On a First Name Basis

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Eve recently discovered that teachers have first names.  We were at a birthday party a few weeks ago and I was talking to the mom.  I called her Rachel and Eve, who happened to be right near by, said “Ohhhh…. Mrs. B’s first name is Rachel?!  Now I know!”  Mrs. B is a sub at school and Eve was pretty darn proud of herself for knowing.

This afternoon I was talking to Alan about a long-term sub position I applied for at Eve’s school.  I mentioned the teacher by first name and Eve perked right up.  “Who is Nikki?” she asked.  I said, “Oh, that’s Mrs. R at school.”  Eve was super excited and decided she’d better start taking notes.

imageHilarity ensued. I told her the first names of one or two teachers, she guessed her own teacher’s first name, and then I wouldn’t tell her any more.  I told her she’d have to figure them out on her own.  She begged and pleaded and I agreed to give her one more after she ate all her dinner and drank her milk.  May as well get something out of this game, besides pure entertainment!

She finished her milk and dinner just as Lex was coming into the room with a question.  Eve said, “Ok, what is Mr. D’s first name?” I told her it began with an R, then turned my attention momentarily to Lex’s question.  Eve thought for a minute then guessed, “Ragaloni?”  I nearly fell out of the chair laughing!  She was on my lap and we were both hysterical.  Ragaloni?!  What kind of a guess is that?  The girl kills me sometimes!  She also couldn’t remember Nikki’s name when it came time for writing and kept calling her “Nickel-y”.

She is now on a quest to discover first names at school.  She says she’s going to bring her note with her to school to write down more names.  I suspect she’ll lose the note before Monday.

I was also remember a similar situation when Lex was in kindergarten.  Similar, but more Lex-like and a lot less Eve-like.  I mentioned a teacher by first name and he said, “Oh, is that Mrs.?” (I forget which teacher it was.)  I said it was and asked how he knew.  He replied, “They all wear name tags, Mom.”  Duh!  In kindergarten he had already read everyone’s name tags and was well aware of first and last names.  Of course!

Eve on the other hand, well, she keeps me laughing!

Star of the Week

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Lex was Star of the Week in 3rd grade last week. I meant to take pictures of something to go with a blog post, but I never did. Mostly because it all happens at school! The Star of the Week idea provides for a chance to honor each student in the class. When it is their week they bring in a bag of “artifacts” to show the class on Monday. Lex brought a project he made at Home Depot, his CHaD medal from the race, his lovey dog, and a few other things. On Tuesday they get to bring in a favorite book to share with the class. On Wednesday the parents send in a letter to the child that the teacher reads. Lex was very excited for this. I was very stressed! :) The letter is supposed to be sent to school in a sealed envelope and the student hears it for the first time with his class. Lex told me the other letters were there pages long and funny and sweet. He’s the second to last kid in class to do this so he’s heard a lot of letters so far! I ended up writing a full two pages and Eve wrote a letter as well. I talked to his teacher later and she said none of them are three pages long! :) Silly Lex! He loved his letter and that’s the most important part. Thursday was parents lunch day, so Alan picked up Panera Bread and we joined Lex for lunch with his class. I like his class and it was fun to get to see them again. As we were leaving my 5th grade class came in and I got to say hi to them as well. Friday the Star of the Week sheet says something about a special poster, but Lex said they never do that. All week the Star gets to be line leader and the teacher’s helper and more. They feel really important and special.

Artie

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Eve’s class is studying penguins this month and as a special treat they have a friend named Artie who visits each student. Eve was overjoyed when she found out Artie was coming to spend the weekend with us! We had some errands to do after school, so Artie came along for the ride.

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Artie came to the Co-Op with us.

 

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Artie had fun at King Arthur Flour!

 

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Artie and Eve built block towers together.

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Artie joined us for dinner wearing a fancy hat and veil.  Artie likes reading Calvin and Hobbes.

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At bedtime Artie put on Pjs…

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… and shared giggly secrets with Eve.

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Artie enjoyed the bedtime stories Eve read him.

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The next morning Artie got dressed. Eve assured me that Artie likes pink polka dot skirts and flower crowns. :)  Her hair is wild in this picture! 

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Artie came with us to CAOS at the Ava Gallery. Turns out Artie is very creative!

Dear Mrs. Burriss.  This photo was just staged and Artie came into no real contact with messy art supplies.  We took the utmost care of him. :)

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Later that day Artie made a few phone calls and ran up quite a phone bill! Calls to the Antarctic are expensive!

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We had a movie night Saturday night, but the kids chose to watch a NOVA episode about genetics instead of a movie. Artie was fascinated!

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This morning Artie joined us for a playdate and got a sneak peak at a house he’ll be visiting later this month.

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Four silly kids, a cat, and a penguin. What more do you need for a great playdate!

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This evening Artie put on Eve’s paint smock and did some more (pretend) painting. Artie also helped Eve with her math homework, but I wasn’t around to take a picture of that.

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Artie ended the weekend cuddled up with Eve and Alan, reading bedtime stories.

Eve has very much enjoyed her visit with Artie.  She was even in tears (put-upon tears) last night that she loved Artie so much and it would be just too hard to give Artie back.  We had a little conversation about all the other kids in her class who hadn’t had a chance with Artie yet.  She decided that seeing Artie in school each day would be enough.

Final Christmas Cookies

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Eve remembered this morning that her art teacher wasn’t there the day before Christmas vacation and didn’t get the cookies Eve brought in. She was very concerned that day that her art teacher would have no holiday cookies. :-)  She has art today and insisted on bringing her teacher cookies.  Fortunately I still have a batch of peanut butter cookies in the freezer. I think her teacher will be surprised!

Busy Elves

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We have been busy little elves around here. Each year in the past we’ve made holiday treats for the kids to share with their teachers and classmates. This year I wanted to do the same, plus my classes. I also wanted to give my students little goodbye/thank you gifts. Unfortunately between the three classes (1st, 3rd, and 5th) there are 86 kids and I have about zero available time. I also wanted to come up with a super awesome thank you gift for my mentor teacher, and a little some thing for the other four teachers on my team. I have been quite torn between wanting to be awesome and make everything perfect, and just wanting to sleep. I finally decided I have to let go of the idea of individual gifts for the students. There are just too many of them. I thought it would be fun to get my 5th graders a MadLibs book (fits in with my writing classes, grade level, fun and educational, etc), but at over $3/book and 48 students, and me having no income… well, that just didn’t make sense.

This week I found myself on a baking binge and tonight we pulled together a nice showing for tomorrow. I have a stack of MadLibs as a gift for my mentor teacher; an awesome CD (They Might Be Giants, “Here Comes Science”) for Lex’s teacher, Eve’s teacher, and my mentor teacher; and a plate of cookies for all of the relevant teachers and staff. I started with eleven plates (five on my team, three in Lex’s room, and three in Eve’s room), but then Eve decided she really wanted to bring treats to the specials teachers and a few other people so she made bags (she didn’t like the plates I was putting together!) of cookies for nine people, plus the eight Lex and I did. Cookies galore! Every night this week Alan came home to find more cookies. He must have thought I was losing my mind! :) All of the classes are having parties tomorrow so I’m going to send in plates of cookies for the students as well. We’ll be lucky if we have any left after that! I’ll have to do more baking this weekend. ;)

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Decorating gingerbread cookies a few days ago. Here’s a question for you: How do you ruin perfectly good gingerbread cookies? Answer… let children decorate them! So much sugar and candy on such a perfectly nice cookie.

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Lex worked really hard on his designs this year. I think they came out so nice.

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We packaged up several of the cookies to send out in care packages today.

kisses

I got a bag of Hershey Kisses from BJs and Eve insisted on opening all of them. I made a triple batch of Peanut Butter Blossoms and we still had tons of kisses left. This evening we made the pretzel/kisses/m&ms treats. Eve asked how many to make and I said we would make them until we used up all the unwrapped Hershey Kisses. It ended up being 3 trays full!

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When I first asked the kids what we should do with all the extra unwrapped Hershey Kisses… this was their answer!

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Lex and I started an assembly line cookie plate production. Eve came down later and threw her own kinks into the works, insisting on bagging hers, not using plates, and making an extra half dozen. How can I say no to sharing the cookie love! :)

Tomorrow is the last day before Christmas vacation. I believe every class will be watching movies and eating cookies. First and fifth have pyjama day and Lex is jealous that his class isn’t doing that. He’s happy that lots of “free choice time” was on the calendar for tomorrow though. Should be a fun day.

Holiday Concert

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Oh, I forgot one big event in my update post below. The Holiday Concert! We have a new music teacher at school this year and she organized a great holiday concert! Here are a few from-the-back-row, low-quality videos for your viewing pleasure. Eve was SUPER excited about it and has been singing the songs for weeks now. Lex, on the other hand, was less so. They have been practicing in music class for awhile now, maybe since the beginning of school, and Lex has not been excited. In the beginning he was putting up quite a fuss in music class, telling me he was embarrassed and did not want to go to music class. His poor teacher, a girl fresh out of school, came to me in the lunch room to see if I could help. Apparently he was being a pain in the butt. He and I had a chat that night and we made a deal that if he had top-notch behavior in music class between then and the concert, if he participated and I heard nothing but good reports from the music teacher, then I would let him stay home from the concert. He agreed eagerly and was a model student for the rest of the time. His teacher told me that whatever I said to him had worked because he was a joy to have in class now. I didn’t bother to tell her about our arrangement. He even did well at the stage rehearsal the morning of the concert. That night he was really torn. He wanted to go, wanted to be there, but was nervous. So we made another deal. His teacher was one of the people who were standing behind the risers “just in case” and I told him if he got too nervous he could step off the back of the risers and stand with his teacher. I knew she would be fine with it. She was well aware of his stage fright and had been encouraging him to come and give it a try. He agreed to the deal, got changed into his nice(ish) clothes, and came to the concert. Once there, Eve happily ran to her place on the risers but I had to walk with Lex to his. Inconveniently his class was center stage. Right in the middle, front and center. As we got closer to his spot he got more and more nervous. We ended up stopping a bit away. He was crying and buried his face in me. His teacher saw him and waved him over. A friend came running over to help him along. A sweet friend who’s helped him through nervous times in the past. But no luck, he wanted nothing to do with it. He ended up coming back with me and sitting, very fidgety, on my lap for the whole concert. The place was packed! I would have preferred him on the risers, but you can’t force it.

Here are a few videos of Eve singing, and the rest of the school too! :)

The opening number… (Eve is the kid with the Santa hat towards the middle)

Kindergarten and first started with Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Eve is the one in the Santa hat in the middle. She kept pulling the hat further and further down over her eyes. :)

Next up, “I want to be an elf” by kindergarten and first. Eve loves this one and has been singing it for weeks!

Lex’s class sang Frosty and played a song on the “barred instruments.” He’s the kid not in this video. :)

The whole school sang a funny song called “Someone’s in the chimney.” A 4th grader was hiding in a fake chimney and voicing Santa for the song.

And lastly, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, from the whole school.

There was a professional photographer there who I’m sure took much better videos than I did. In fact, he was right in front of us! :) But you can watch these if you’d like. Or not. Merry Christmas from DBS!

Friday folder

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I love the Friday folder. :-)  This is a picture Eve drew of the little in their room.  I love that she drew them in bed (green smiley faces) and that she drew their comforters (princess on her bed).  Notice her name? She has developed an interest in cursive so I taught her how to write her name.