Art Extravaganza!!!

Every year the preschool has an art show in May. It is a BIG, BIG deal. The teachers plan for it all year long.  The kids know about it and talk about it for weeks in advance. Each classroom  is completely gutted and transformed into an art gallery.  The lobby, every sitting area,  each hallway, and the cafeteria become magical, colorful, and whimsical. 

In the Blue Room, which is Heather's classroom, there was a water fountain with a whole beachy theme going on in one corner featuring sand castles and sand art.

Painted pails and buckets.

Another area of the classroom had a garden feel to it with plants, soil, and handprint decorated stepping stones.

Canvas paintings.

Wanted by the Law!

Scratch art.

Art on foil with glue and paint.

Decorated mirrors.

Fish painted t-shirts.

Lots of handprint artwork.

Spin art kites.

Pillows the kids made themselves.

Self portrait.

Mug and coaster. I'll be drinking my morning coffee out of this when it comes home.

Painted wooden frames.

Another type of "self-portrait."  The written parts say things like, "When I grow up I want to be a doctor." and  "My favorite color is green." and "My favorite book is Clifford." I'm sorry the picture is not sharper so you could read it.

 Journals the kids have been working on all year.

 Stained glass art. I still have the one Cole made in preschool hanging in the dining room window.

This is my room - the Green Room. Heather had artwork in here too - all the students had artwork everywhere, not just in their own room. I don't know who that kid is, but I wanted to get a picture of this area - mulch, stepping stones, real trees, a crushed rock pathway, and fairy houses.

Can you tell that these moose are hand and feet prints? The bears are shaving cream and paint art.

Leaf themed place mats.

A school-year's worth of work, and a mad scramble for the day to get everything displayed and the preschool transformed into a stunning art gallery.  All for a 2 hour art show and then it all comes down. 

Another Last First

As Heather gets older, with no younger siblings following in her footsteps, I find myself ticking off the last of the firsts. First teeth, first steps, first day of preschool. 

I remember Wayne's first t-ball game. And Cole's first t-ball game. And today Heather's first t-ball game. Another last first.

Heather has been very excited to start t-ball. She has loved going to the practices and knows many of the kids on her team, some of whom she will be classmates with in the fall.  When we woke this morning to fog, drizzle, and 34 degrees, she was almost in tears to think that her game might get cancelled. Fortunately for her, the rain held off, although the temps were not so cooperative.

 Freezing as shortstop.

 Up to bat. Strike one.

 Strike two.

 Strike three. In t-ball, you get 5 pitches before the coach brings out the batting T.

 On the 4th pitch, she gets a good hit.

 She didn't like running the bases with the helmet on.

 It took an hour and a half to complete the first 2 innings, at which point, we had to subtract her from the game, in order to get to Wayne's minors game at noon.  Heather didn't mind because by that time she was frozen solid and ready to go. Let's hope for better weather next week.

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Last Year at This Time:

Owl Pellet

Remember Wayne's nickname from first grade? Well, Dr. Science is at it again.  Last weekend I was forcing him to help me do some yard work when he was distracted by an owl pellet he found on the ground underneath the front yard maple tree.  At the beginning of the school year, his class did a whole unit on owls and their teacher ordered owl pellets for all of them to dissect, so he knows all about it. There is no delicate way to describe what an owl pellet is, so I'll just insert this explanation I found at Kidwings:

"Owls, like many other birds, eat their food whole. Since birds do not have teeth, they can't chew their food. Therefore, they use their strong and sharp beaks to rip their prey apart and then swallow large chunks whole. The owl slowly digests its meal by separating the softer materials (such as meat) from the harder material (such as bones). It then regurgitates the harder material along with indigestible items such as feathers and fur in the form of a pellet." -Kidwings

I didn't think to take a picture of it before he started to dissect it, but this is a picture I found in a google search.

He took the pellet to school to show his teacher and she let him bring home some of the tools they used in class for the dissection.  (By dissecting an owl pellet, you can learn about what they eat.) He also knew about a site online where he could print out this bone sorting chart.

 The skull looks huge in this picture, but all of the bones were very tiny and delicate. Wayne found 7 mole skulls in the 2 inch pellet.

 After sorting everything out, he glued the bones to construction paper in an approximation of anatomical correctness.

Kind of cool and creepy at the same time.

Dance Assembly

 Dance Assembly as part of the physical Education class. Keep in mind, they only had a few practice sessions, and the kids came up with these routines themselves.

Wayne with the 3rd and 4th grade group.

Cole with the first and second grade group. They're dancing to a song called "I'm Elmo and I Know It." He wants me to make sure you all know that he was very embarrassed to dance to an Elmo song, 8-year-olds are too old for Elmo, he was not in favor of it at all.

And then Wayne was also part of a smaller group with his friends Bailey and Asom.

Happy Easter

Today was GREC's Easter Scramble.

The Easter Bunny was there. Heather actually liked him this year even though it wasn't Daddy.

 There were egg races.

And the scramble for candy on the playground.

Here's an action packed video of one of the sack races, in the age 8 and up range. You'll see Wayne and Cole starting on the left.

Happy Easter!

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Last year at this time:

Proficient With Distinction

Here's where I use my blog to exercise my parental bragging rights.

NECAP results came home with recent report cards, and Wayne, thanks to some great teachers over the years and his own distinctive brain, scored in the "proficient with distinction" range in both math and reading. If you click on the image you can see it a little larger.

 NECAP testing starts in 3rd grade, so Cole being in 2nd grade has not done this yet.

Wayne and Cole both got excellent report cards.

Wayne:

And Cole:

I never take for granted that we have kids who like school and who do so well. I hope they continue this throughout their academic career.

8

Cole turned 8 last weekend!

 He helped decorate his cake while Heather cleaned the frosting bowl.

 He requested yellow cake with chocolate frosting.

 His favorite present was the Hoth Wampa Star Wars Lego set. 

Thanks to everyone for all the singing phone calls,  cards, gifts and Happy Birthday wishes. He had a great day.

In other Cole news, remember when Julie did a post about Estelle bringing home a stuffed animal from school for the  weekend (or night?) Well the 2nd grade here does the same thing. Wayne did this a couple years ago when he was in 2nd grade. This is a stuffed black bear named Rocky. Each student brings it home with them and then in the evening they write in the bear's journal about his experiences.

At our house, Rocky played on the playground, climbed an apple tree, and rode a bike, and suffered through Cole's piano practice.

 He also went to check for eggs in the hen house until chased all over the yard by the rooster.

Who needs a watch dog when this rooster is around?