This is about a month old, but I knew it would be Thanksgiving break before I got back here.
We surprised the kids with a little horse back riding fun. Bee and Lou love horses and after many many conversations about it, they seem to understand that one will not fit in our back yard. We planned to go u the amusement park and took a late turn and ended up here... They were a little freaked out when I jumped out of the car and insisted we all go see the horses. They still didn't get it when the girl said, "come on, you can ride Eagle."
This years Halloween got to be two days! Storms pushed a few events around on the calendar allowing us to enjoy more things. Lucky us!
We found this karate costume at a garage sale at least a year ago and Lou has worn it a lot since. I was glad when he wanted to wear it for Halloween.
The pictures are not great! Honestly, I was hurrying us out the door to an event at church, I may have snapped at everyone... I can't remember though. Lou was also frustrated with me that I couldn't get his kick in the photo.
When I finally got it, Bee was frustrated that she had to keep standing there.
Bee wanted to be a rockstar and we had the perfect dress that was a fun hand-me-down from a friend. I think this friend wore it as an everyday dress. Daddy was her roadie!
She got to pick out new earrings since she was wearing an outfit we already owned. This was really just my way of making sure she didn't change her mind about the costume at the last minute. This is the first of many pairs of dangly earrings I'm sure! She's been pierced about 2 months, just in time to take out the studs and insert rock star accessories.
This was Tippy's first Halloween with us and got included too. He didn't love it. I think he's eyeing me suspiciously in this photo. He was needed for my costume though. We walked him around the neighborhood briefly and then took him home. He was overwhelmed to say the least. I just traced a dog vest I made him last winter and added iron on vinyl cut with the silhouette. It' nice to know that it will iron on to fleece as I wasn't sure.
I was Ms. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus books. I've been planning my costume since last year when I was Pipi. I start thinking a year out! I love Halloween for it's excuse for a costume! I bought a purple button up and purple belt and blue t-shirt at the mission store and sewed on a blue skirt that I cut from the bottom of a blue knit dress that always fit oddly. The shoes were a student gift last year! They knew me well! I added felt bugs and have fly earring on. I just glued plastic flies to a pair of green earrings. Bee let me borrow her lizard stuffed animal for Liz the lizard who is perched on my shoulder. I spent about two hours on it over the course of two evenings. The grading I didn't do is still on my coffee table! I will wear it on book character day at school so I thought it was worth the time. Plus, I just needed to do something I enjoy. That's totally gotten pushed to the back burner this year!
I has several people come up and ask who I was but many came up and excitedly said, "I know who you are!" Several teenage boys asked me in the neighborhood who I was and when I said who, one of them said. "Dude, I told you... pay up! Two snickers bars and two M&Ms!, Boohyeah!" So they had bet candy on who I was! Funny stuff.
Like 2 posts ago, I wrote about soccer season just getting started... now it all over. That's how things are going for us right now.... time is flying by!
That cute green number 9 is mine.
I started the season helping with coaching. As the boys got more independent and I got busier, we were able to go down to two coaches.
Soccer season starts out hot and ends cold It's a funny season but was always my favorite.
As I write this, Lou and daddy are at basketball tryouts. We're on the next thing!
I was in charge of the hallway bulletin board for October. It funny to only have one bulletin board that I get access to once in the year, but I don't have time for anything more. I really had only one writing sample that was good enough from the kids to use early in the month. It's still so early in the year.
We read Growing Up Where Jesus Lived, which is an abeka book leftover from the old series. I shared last month bit about having a end of reading celebration where we dressed up in bible costumes and tasted foods like olives, sheep milk cheese and figs.
The kids wrote lovely personal narratives from the point of view of a child growing up in Jesus's time. They were really pretty good, some sharing about the food they ate, clothes they wore, chores they had to do, what they did for fun, how they celebrated holidays, etc.
So, the coolest thing though is adding Aurasma to make the bulletin board interactive. I took video of five of the students reading their papers in their costumes. Pictures of the kids in their costumes are linked through the app Aurasma so when you hold a mobile device over the pictures (while being logged into Aurasma), the video plays right over the picture as if the picture has come to life. It's sort of Harry Potter. I've been playing around with Aurasma since the summer. The potential for use in the classroom is immense. This is the first time I've used it for school, but I have other ideas for other projects.
Aurasma is a free app and after creating a quick and easy (and free) account, you can create your own auras and follow other creators. It does take a bit of practice but after that it is easy to use. This board was up during parent conference and I was excited to show it to the parents.
Bee helped me create the video. It always funny to hear your own voice on video.
This little cutie from last year soccer is like all grown up. Now he plays in the big league with real referees and everything. What a difference a year makes.
I've been missing in blog land, except I haven't. I have to maintain a class website and blog now, which has taken the place of any blogging going on over here. It's here. It's through weebly.com, which is actually a really nice place to blog.
School is going well. I basically love it. I do. But, some days I want to get in the car after school and drive as far away as I can. But I don't. The dog needs let out and homework done and lunches packed for the next day and papers need graded and a few parents need emailed and a form filled out for the speech therapist and a letter set out about parent conferences. Lou probably has to get to soccer. Someone would probably find me and bring me home anyway, only to find that the laundry and dishes are even more behind. That's just been a few days. Most days, It's manageable and I don't want to run away. More or less.
Here are random pictures. A mix of school and my own kids, which is how life is anyway.
We spent two weeks reading Growing Up Where Jesus Lived (Abeka) and then had a little tasting day where we dressed up in bible costumes (some in their bath robes) and tasted sheep cheese, olives and figs.
Here's a little friend leading calendar. I really like the program we use for calendar, Every Day Counts, Calendar Math.
Here are two of my sweet boys doing some reading outside. One was a little nervous of chiggers biting him when we read outside, so he wanted to sit on the cement steps. The other boy didn't want him to be alone and went to read by him.
Here are my kids. We're back at rock climbing each week. They are offering a weekly 'camp' and Bee and Lou are both learning a lot of advanced skills. I'm worried they are going to want to climb real rocks someday. Our facility takes trips all over for 'real' climbing. I'm not ready for that. That little blue dot in the photo above is Bee. That wall is her goal wall. She can't get up over that slant. A few of the other kids can, but she just can't get it yet.
This was me the other day, stuck on a log. I could see my house, I was almost home. The neighbors were having a tree cut down. There was this chunk in the road and I thought I could make it. I got stuck. Four tree men quickly swooped in and saved the day. As soon as I pulled away, I'm sure they had a good laugh about the stupid woman driver. I think the barefoot man is the homeowner. I'm pretty sure he nodded for me to go ahead and drive over the log. He probably wanted to see if I was dumb enough to do it. I texted this photo to my sister and said that I had run over a man. She didn't buy it.
Bee and Lou are learning to grade papers. Don't tell my students! They take payment in chocolate chips. It's a good deal all around.
We had some Japanese exchange students come an teach the third graders to make origami cranes. Here's Bee and a few of my students showing off their cranes. When we went back to class, we read Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes and had a really great student guided conversation about how she put her faith in the wrong thing. The kids were quick to pick on her religious differences.
During a health chapter on sun safety, we did some work with sun sensitive paper.
I forgot how neat the paper was. The kids agreed.
My sister told me about a program (Pongsat) where you can send ping pong balls filled with your choice of item to a group in California, who will then, for free, send them up into the edge of space. They send the ping pong balls back and you can check on the contents to see if the conditions of space changed them in anyway. We sent up some gravel from a science project we had been doing. We are still awaiting their return.
My kiddos have been bringing all sorts of critters to school. Here's a skink.
He's really pretty cool, sort of a snake with legs. His favorite spot is behind your hair.
And a rabbit came. His name is Romeo.
And some bearded dragons...
They are just babies. I can't keep a class pet since my room is happily shared many evening each week by other groups. I believe divorce care meets in there one evening and perhaps boy scouts another night. Sunday school is there on Sunday morning. I'm trying to be really flexible about it.
That looks like all the photos I have in my sitting in my open file. If I haven't shared any of Lou's soccer pictures, I'll get those posted soon too. It may be a month. Who knows.
