First days pic - at long last

It has taken a while, but here it is.  If I keep messing with it, I'll never get it posted.  I'm going to have to adjust my template next year or she's going to grow out the top of it. Last year I tried to change the fingers format from showing her age to showing her grade, but Bob took this year's picture and didn't get that memo.   

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.

Parker is a first grader!

I'm a little sore from doing handsprings and clicking my heels in the air, but I'll try to write a little something.  

Drop off went well....when we got there, most of the class were there already (translation:  we were running a little late), so Parker seemed a little shell shocked, but she found her seat and the place to put her backpack, and that was it. 

Here are the traditional pictures.  I think next year I'm going to change the tradition and post the pictures on the SECOND day of school.  Usually on the first day, by the time I get everything edited and put together just so, half my day is gone, and I'm way behind on all the things I had planned for the day:  hearing myself think, completing a task without interruption, and a lot of other NOTHING. 

I did my best to line things up and scale them the same, but it's still not quite a 1:1 comparison because she doesn't always stand the same distance away from the door.  Also this year, we've added the hip out/slouch pose. Remember, you can click on the pictures to see them larger in their own window.

I feel like I should have made her dress up more, but this is her uniform right now:  denim shorts and tshirt with a cat or dog on the front.  As soon as I let her, we'll change that to tshirts and jeans.  I sort of wish she'd want to get more dressed up, but it's hard to complain about only buying $5 tshirts.  You can also see how much my standards have dropped when you look at her footwear.  It doesn't show, but I did at least give her a fresh coat of polish on her toenails.

Kindergarten - Before and after artwork

End of school party

I'm catching up on posting pictures. Here are some from Parker's last day of kindergarten. They set aside an hour for a class party - we had a 'luau', hence the plastic leis. Most classes did stuff in the classroom, crafts and making sundaes, but I was glad to get them outside to burn off some of the excited energy.

Relay race: plastic egg on a spoon

Sack race (with pillowcases)

Limbo

Parker and her teacher

Group pic

These are the tshirts that I made for the class. I was really pleased with how they turned out. The design is a little hard to see, but it's supposed to look a little bit like a passport stamp. I have the school name and year and a "k" for kindergarten going around the edge. The week before, we passed them around and they all signed the backs of each. It will be a nice keepsake they can wear for a while (some longer than others).

Daddy/Daughter Sweetheart Dance

At Parker's school, around Valentine's Day, they have a Daddy/Daughter dance. (prior to that, there is a Mom/Son skating event). Lots of Parker's friends attend, so there was no way she was going to miss it.

Bob tried for a corsage, but couldn't find a suitable one, so he brought Parker flowers. She was thrilled.

Just to add to our chaos, it was the night before we left on our ski trip, so Gigi, former hairsylist, was here. It took both of us to do a suitable 'updo'. I didn't really get a good picture of it though...the back was a cascade of curls , and the very front was 2 braids that wrapped around (that was my part, at Parker's insistence)

How sweet do they look? Bob called all his friends, and yep, they were all wearing suits, so he did too. Just what someone wants to put on after they get home from work on a Friday night. He looked great though.

At the dance. Bob said she had fun - they do a combo of dancing with friends and dancing with dads and running around in circles.

Maybe next year I'll look for something darker for her to wear. She looks so pretty in that color that I couldn't pass it up....but it is more of an Easter dress than evening wear.

White Christmas

Here are some pictures from our 'white christmas'. When the rain started turning in to snow, Parker was super thrilled. She spent a LOT of time running around on the patio catching snowflakes on her tongue. Like her hodge-podge outfit? Santa hat, purple gloves and white shirt and legging, chosen specifically to match the snow.

This was the accumulation we woke up to on Christmas morning. They said this was the first White Christmas in 80-something years. And one of Parker's Christmas gifts was a new larger, warmer coat, just in the nick of time.

In other (more recent) news, Parker got her first report card this week. They do them mid-year, and end-of - year. As expected, she did really well and has mastered nearly everything. But instead of letter grades they do a "D" for that skill being "Developed: Successfully completes tasks independently." It is quite a shock opening up the envelope and seeing a big string of D's though (as I'm sure my parents can attest). The only area where she received a "SD" for "Still Developing" is on writing the letter J. I'm pretty sure she can do that.....so I'm thinking the teacher just threw in the SD so it would look like she actually checked her on each an every letter and didn't just give her straight D's.
Her reading level is a 12 on the DRA leveling system they use. The goal for the end of the year for Kindergartners is a 3, so she's well past where she needs to be. I'm not telling that though....I don't want her thinking she can slack off the rest of the year.

Here are the teacher comments:
"Parker is becoming more and more fluent and accurate in her reading. (she has moved from a reading level of 3 in Oct. to 12 in Jan.) She enjoys reading to herself and enjoys reading with friends, as well. Parker is very polite and respectful of her classmates. She is never in a hurry to be first and will often give another friend the opportunity to go ahead of her. I would consider Parker to be a very giving, caring girl. She is a joy to have in class! "

Parent / Teacher Conference, concert

We met with Parker's teacher friday for a progress report on how she's doing in school. They do them twice a year. As it turns out, the teacher thinks she's just as smart and sweet and precious as we do! She is in the top reading group, although there are a couple others kids that are at a higher reading level. She's right on track with everything else. The teacher reports that she tries hard, takes pride in her work, is very cooperative and gets along well with everyone in the class.
We're so pleased with how she's doing, and pretty pleased with ourselves too.

As I'm typing this she's sneaking around and peaking over my shoulder. I guess I'm going to have to make sure to keep the blog address a secret so she can never pull it up and see all that I say about her.

This morning I was treated to a little concert. Apparently Parker wrote some music yesterday. This morning she added a "big finish" and performed it for me in her pj's. My job was to hold the music and turn it around at the right time - it's 2-sided , and help her "get her fingers situated" . As she played, she looked back and forth as though she was actually reading the music. (she wasn't, I checked). Bob was accidentally included in the concert even though he was still sleeping....we left the monitor on.

Student of the week

Another busy week around here. The highlight of last week was that Parker was Student of the Week. There is one student per class, per grade selected. She got a certificate during a little assembly they have on some fridays...sort of like a pep rally. She's proud of it, but not exactly sure what she did to earn it. I bought her a couple new hair bows in school colors at the PTA table, and she was probably more excited about receiving those than the award.

She continues to keep herself busy with arts and crafts. She's also big in to 'reuse and recycle'. Here, she's making a bracelet by taping strips of colored paper around the rubber band that comes around broccoli. It carried over into dinner as you can see. Prior to that she was tracing around cookie cutters, coloring and cutting out the shapes and taping them around the house to decorate.

The long days continue to be an issue. It is a common occurrence for her to get mad or frustrated about something and stomp off and go lay down...and fall asleep. It's nice to have the little break from the tantrum, and it's tempting to let her sleep, but too much of a nap and she can't get to sleep at night, further compounding the problem. On this day she snuggled up in a pile of warm towels fresh from the dryer, waiting to be folded. I can't blame her though...I've always wanted to do that too.

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.

Kindergarten - First day - last part

So we all loaded up and headed off for the big drop off. There were tons of parents...we had to park 'off road' in a field.





So we go in and Parker's teacher shows her where to hang her backpack and where to put her lunch box. This will be her routine every day I guess.

She was the only one at her table that had arrived, and I was a little worried about that....her being willing to sit alone while everyone else trickled in, but she was fine. We gave her hugs and kisses. And then more hugs and kisses and she sort of gave us a look like "ok, that's enough. Get out of here before I cry". So we did one more hug and kiss and hit the road.

At the appointed time, I went and picked her up in the carpool loop. She seemed a little drained, but said she liked it and had a good day. She was very hungry and had a granola bar, sun chips and 2 things of peaches. I need to figure out a filling snack that won't spoil her dinner. Maybe we'll try popcorn tomorrow. Hopefully her calorie management will even out soon.

When we got home she learned her best friend had ridden the bus home and she had a huge meltdown. Might have just been a bit of a stress release, but she is VERY anxious to ride the bus. All the kids here ride the bus to and from school....and I intend to let her, just not the FIRST DAY. It's a very sore subject. Parker's friend did ride the bus TO SCHOOL her first day...got right on the bus with her sister and her parents couldn't convince her otherwise. They had to get in the car and follow the bus to school so they could walk her in and do their traditional pictures!

She's also very interested in 'cafeteria food' and what it is and how you get it. Right now she's taking her lunch, but I can see letting her get cafeteria food once a week or so. None of it looks all that healthy to me....but I guess I can replace my junk for their junk once a week.

So it was a lot of buildup...but you only have one first day of Kindergarten, and I think we soaked it up and got the most out of it.