Today's artwork: more ponies

Here's today's drawing....more ponies.  Full disclosure:  Twilight and Fluttershine are ponies that she sees on cartoons, they aren't made up, although decorating their hooves and adding horn might be.  So technically, I guess these are unicorns.

Break Begins.

Good think it's break time, because I'm worn out!  Today was the last 1/2 day before Christmas break and even though it's a 'non instructional day' (the principal says "why pretend?") , it was super busy.  We started off with an awards ceremony that I helped produce to recognize the students that participated in the PTA's art contest.

 Parker won a blue ribbon this year again for her artwork, and she'll be advancing to the district level of judging. (It was also pajama day). 

 After the ribbons, they did a "decorate a human tree" and selected 5th graders got to decorate the principals.  It was very cute and the kids loved it.

    Then the kids watched a movie in the classroom while the moms set up the class parties.  I made a Roll A Snowman game.  It was a big hit!  

Parker's teacher gave everyone Slinkies as a gift.  Parker collected all the boxes she could and brought them home to build an animal apartment house.  (you can see the slinkie cast aside next to the tape.

I can only hope that the gifts we have for her under the tree are as interesting as the boxes they are packed in.

Artwork

Just a quick post to share some drawing Parker did this morning. A horse, 2 uniforns and some penguins. Cute, huh?
EDIT:  Unicorns.  Not uniforns.  Thanks aunt Norma!

Kindergarten - Before and after artwork

Gymnastics, Eyechart

For Christmas, Parker received a little doctor's kit. Almost immediately, all her stuffed animals fell ill or needed a checkup. When Parker goes for her well visits, part of the routine is an eye exam. Since her doctor kit didn't have an eyechart for testing vision, she made one:

In other news, last week we started gymnastics. We were discussing summer plans, and I mentioned that we might try gymnastics...and Parker thought it was such a great idea that she didn't want to wait until summer. She didn't even want to wait until the next day, she was ready right then. It really sealed the deal when she found out what the attire was: bike shorts and tank tops! Her dream outfit! We did a trial class and she loved it, and this week we went back for our first official class.
She's hard to see in this picture...she's wearing pink and blue and she's underneath the red smiley face leaning on a block. Not sure if I'll ever be able to get a good picture, my camera doesn't do action shots very well, plus I feel like a weirdo snapping pictures of kids doing gymnastics.

She is in the 'Bronze' class and they are working on the basics - cartwheels, rolls, and beginning skills on the various apparatus. She's catching on quickly and seems to really be in her element. Parents sit up on the padded bleachers and watch/read/surf on their iphone. It's a much more comfy setup than at ballet, which is a good thing. Something tells me I'm going to be spending a lot of time there.

Recent Artwork

This says, "A spider on you me and on you!". Tim Burton, look out.

Random pics from the week

For the first time in several days, I have a few minutes to blog. Bob found me a work (CAD) project for the next couple weeks, so most of my computer time has been spent doing that. My non computer time has been spent managing an overtired kid. Parker continues to be super needy and cranky in the afternoons on some days. I'm looking for ways to squeeze in more sleep time. I'm also having a neighborhood 6th grader come over twice a week to amuse Parker while I work and help me prep for the evening and next day by picking out pajamas and her school outfit. She's generally pretty happy as long as she's busy and/or the center of attention.

She has a lot of fun with 'her' camera. It's our old digital that works pretty well occasionally.

Today she completed a project she's been thinking about for a while....a painted box. She's been asking me for a box for a while, a PLAIN box to paint. Today she couldn't stand it any longer so I found her a box and she spent her time after school painting it. I have no idea what it's for....possibly a home for a stuffed animal. It's so fun to watch her so engrossed in things like painting and taking (and reviewing) pictures.

The big thing last week was the pep rally and football game. If you can believe it, those thing are actually on the average kindergartner's radar. (talk about indoctrination...) I was able to get out of taking Parker to the football game by taking her to the pep rally. Not that she has any interest in watching football, she just knows it's a big deal and 'everyone' goes. She enjoyed the pep rally and said her favorite part was the cheerleaders, which surprised me...I thought she'd like the drill team the best. ..I think we'll probably continue to go to them...wait, is there another one in 2 days? Maybe every other one. I've ordered a school shirt for her, and we're anxiously awaiting its arrival. She's VERY into her school colors of Red! Black! and White! (also a cheer)

Our (Bob's and my) big deal last week was our 20k race. It started and ended at the arboretum and went around White Rock lake and through the adjacent neighborhoods. It was a very pretty course and the rain had finally ended so we had clear skies and mild temps.
Bob did really well....7th in his age group, 27th over all. He had a sub-7min/mile pace. I was #62 in my AG, and #837 OA. It was WAY more crowded when I finished than when Bob did, haha. Luckily New Belgium was a sponsor, so he had beer to enjoy while waited for me to finish. Our friends Allie, Todd, Holly and that ran it too and it was fun hanging out with them afterward....although I think this was the 'before' picture.
(is it lame to post a proof of a picture? If so, I guess I'm lame)

Random Pictures - week review

Has it been a week already? The 4 day week last week really threw me off. We had a pretty boring week, not much new to report. Here are some blurbs on what Parker did in school this week from the teacher's weekly email:

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Academic Focuses

Math

Ask your child what the word “attribute” means. We have been discussing the different attributes of our button collection and of our parquetry blocks.

We our still enjoying exploring the many different manipulatives we will be using this year.

Writers Workshop

Stories are popping up in journals, we are learning to really think about real things that happen to us, and put our thoughts on paper as illustrations and words. We thought it was pretty special when Mrs. Foster took time to come read in our journals!

Science: Magnets

We took magnets outside to see if we could find anything that would be attracted to a magnet (I was reminded by the students it meant it had iron in it). The biggest thrill was when our magnets stuck to the school bus! Children were busy recording the results.

Language/Arts

We are busy practicing becoming independent readers using a great resource called “The Daily Five”. This takes lots of practice and we are building stamina (ask your child the meaning of this new vocabulary word) so we can read longer each day by ourselves. They are very proud of their accomplishments this week and so am I!

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Parker really struggled with being tired this week...which means lots of whining and crying and unreasonable arguments. She was especially grumpy and mad at me on Thursday so she got a post it out to 'journal' about her bad day. She started out by drawing a house....OUR house. Luckily she calmed down before she added a picture of me sending her to her room. When she calmed down a bit, she started adding lots of other parts, and told me she was doing "el-ab-or-ation. Adding details!" Nice to know she's absorbing what they're doing in school.

Random picture: getting a haircut last weekend at Bob's parent's house courtesy of Gigi. It was just a trim, but I had her do the bangs just short enough that they'll pull out of her ponytail after a little while and make the pretty curls around her face. She hasn't seemed to notice...as long as it's all pulled back ("not poofy!") in the morning when she looks in the mirror, she's happy.

Here's a better picture of the volunteer angel trumpet/moon flower.

We've had a ton of rain the past few days. It's very welcome, but I'm getting a little tired of it. A fun thing we did today when we were stuck inside was to watch the preying mantis that lives on the gardenia. He's been there most of the summer, and he's getting bigger and bigger. He was sitting there today in the rain enjoying his front row seat to the hummingbird wars. I have 2 feeders and 4 hummingbirds and they fuss and fight and zoom around ALL DAY LONG. If everyone would just relax and take turns, they wouldn't need to consume so many calories. If i would move the feeders farther apart, it would be harder for 1 bird to try to guard both feeders, but what would be the fun in that (for me)?

Family Portrait Drawing, 2nd week review

The 2nd week of school went pretty much like the first week with a few more bumps. We had 1 major morning meltdown over clothing (nothing felt right) and one horrendous evening of one meltdown after another because of being overtired (I think).
Parker had her first 'cafeteria food' this week and that went smoothly. Considering she's accustomed to just unpacking a lunch, going through a line and picking everything out is a big deal, but she insisted she could do it and I guess she did. She chose a corn dog, cantaloupe and black beans.

Here's a family picture she drew the 2nd day of school. Bob's smile is concealed by his beard.

In case you are wondering, this is how our school district is approaching the Obama speech issue that everyone is losing their minds over:

From the Office of the Superintendent

The President of the United States will conduct a live web cast on Tuesday, September 8. The Department of Education has billed this as a “Back to School” Speech and the department website has provided some activities that a teacher could choose to do with his/her students. Many of the activities seem appropriate for a lesson in civics. However, the will not participate in the live web cast on Tuesday September 8 for the following reasons:

· District teachers have done collaborative planning in advance and the notice we received on this speech is inadequate for us to incorporate it into meaningful

lessons

· Since the speech is live, we are unable to receive a copy of the text in advance which handicaps a teacher to prepare a meaningful lesson

· It would be rare that the same resource would be equally appropriate for a Kindergarten student and a senior in high school. Since we do not have details on the content, we do not have the information to determine the grade level and/or subject matter to which it is best aligned

· If we access as a web cast, we do not have sufficient bandwidth to get a clean audio and video program. We actually learned this last November when our volleyball team state playoff game was web cast during school

· At this time of the school year, I am unwilling to allow any activity that may have little benefit, but could serve as a distraction to the core mission of the school. Whether the President’s words to our students have a political tone or not, this address has already become politicized and could serve as a distraction in our schools.

Therefore, we will not web cast the speech on Tuesday, but we will download it and review it to determine if it does have any valuable instructional benefit. In the event that we choose to use any of the speech at any level K-12, parents will receive advance notice and your son/daughters will be able to choose an alternate assignment and opt out of the speech.
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In other news, I'm sad to report, it appears we are ballet school dropouts. Remember the meltdown evening I mentioned earlier? That was the day we were supposed to go to ballet. She told me in hysterical sobs that she didn't want to go to ballet anymore, that it was too hard and too soon after getting home from school and that she'd prefer to just do her own 'homeschool' practice. So we stayed home. Not the usual way I'd handle something like that, but...you've heard the phrase "you can lead a horse to water...."? Well and even more impossible task is putting a bawling 5 year old into lycra tights. We're going to give it another week just to make sure, but I think her mind is made up. It didn't seem hard, but it is right after school and I can totally understand why she'd just want to stay home after a long day of school. She used to love to put on her ballet stuff and dance around, so hopefully she'll keep that up.

artwork

Have I posted this yet? They all start to look the same after a while. This is a self portrait Parker did. She's wearing a skirt and a shirt, and has several bows in her hair.

Recent artwork

This is a picture parker drew today at school. They've been talking about weather, and this is supposed to represent the weather. She pointed out that the colored dots on the side represent the different weather extremes...good, bad, terrible, etc. Maybe it's a code like the radar uses? She is full of information about lightening and thunder and how to be safe in bad weather.
Speaking of weather, there was bad weather in our area last night, but it missed us. Good thing...they were showing people on the news holding baseball sized hail.

More artwork

Here's more artwork. This is a picture of Bob (notice there's no hair. She draws me and herself with curly hair). There's also a border of dots "to keep it safe". The dots are made from big stamp markers....she didn't color the precise circles. She draws a safety border around everything these days.

artwork from school

Here's some of Parker's artwork from school. This is an "ice painting"....where they dip ice cubes in paint and use them to paint the picture.

Artwork from school

Here are some paintings from school. They are watercolor, and then they sprinkled salt on them to make them sparkle like snow. Or somesuch.

This one is a family portrait. Bob, me in the middle, and Parker on the right. She got cut off a little in the photo.