Donovan in May
End of school fun! Donovan’s teachers in EP had a wonderful little last day program for us. They had every kid stand up and say something they learned in school. Donovan told us how he learned that Rhode Island is the smallest state =) Adorable! Then we got to play on the playground with bubbles the teachers gave the kids. Such a perfect end to the year! We also got to see some of his work on display during creative producers. They studied honeybees, and Donovan was a guard bee in the Early Primary “Hive.” We also got to see work they drew like Michelangelo, working lying down drawing on a table above them. Such fun!
Donovan’s baseball team improved SO much! Eric told me with a great deal of pride that Donovan was warming up with a friend and they actually caught like 25% of the throws, it was like an actual warm-up! They are learning the rules, where the play is each time, and it’s really exciting. Donovan is talking still about doing baseball again in the fall! They even got to play in a little tournament, and they won a couple games.
Serenity in May:
Serenity in May
The end of school is always busy with end of the year activities. This year Serenity’s class made state boxes for Creative Producers. Serenity chose Alaska, and she had a great time designing the box and decorating it using her best cursive handwriting. Her cursive is really pretty!
We also got a group picture at the last chess club meeting. Eric had a great time running chess club for the second graders! Serenity loves the theory of chess, solving puzzles and figuring out moves. Competing, she’s not such a big fan of. So we’ll see if she chooses to continue next year.
Eric planned another fun learning day for Serenity’s class! This year, he taught statistics and a little bit of geography. For the first hour, he divided the kids into three groups. He worked with some kids on a dice game, having them roll the dice and record the rolls so they could learn about probability and bell curves. The group I worked with was the shoe group. Everyone in the room took off one shoe (which seriously bothered some of the kids). The point was for them to work as a group to categorize the shoes, and graph them, and then draw some conclusions based on the data. Some groups graphed by laced shoes versus slip-ons, some by brand, some by color. They used the data to advise a shoe store owner what kinds of shoes to carry in their shop. They also theorized how the data would be different for a group of younger kids (less laces if you can’t tie them) and older people (more fancy shoes.) Also in winter, or summer, or if they lived in Alaska or Hawaii, there would probably have been a different assortment of shoes. It was really interesting! The third group stacked Oreos. Which was fun and delicious. They counted how many cookies they were able to stack, and recorded their records on the white board. Then they discussed the average, mode, mean and range of their data points. They were all so excited and engaged! It was a blast! The second hour of the morning, half the kids stayed inside with Eric playing a card game that taught more about probability. I went outside with the rest to play geography frisbee golf. He’d set up a course of orange cones labeled with different state capitals. The goal was to throw the frisbee from one state capital to a capital in an adjacent state, and to travel from Olympia to Oklahoma City. They could take the northern route or the southern one. It was a blast!
Since weather interrupted our plan to go to the Richards one weekend, and Donovan had baseball games on Saturday, Serenity and I took a little girls trip to Oklahoma City for the weekend. It was so much fun! She started reading Percy Jackson, and we loved talking and giggling about it, as it is hilarious. Abbey, Maggie, Serenity and I went shopping at Michael’s for craft supplies, and ended up making some really fun jewelry. We also enjoyed high tea! It was delicious! The girls got adorable little tea cups that they got to keep, and the food was beautiful and yummy. I especially liked the scone with lemon curd. Mmmmm.
We also had a couple of Girl Scout events, working on the First Aid badge and Brownie Hiking. The girls practiced wrapping bandages using toilet paper, which was hilarious and fun. Ashley taught them about poison ivy, and lots of other introductory first aid things. For Brownie Hiking, I was prepared for a nice hike on Turkey Mountain. At least I thought I was prepared. Then we got there, and MUD. We were very messy by the end but we made it =) And Maggie came with us!
Maia in May:
Maia in May: Maia loves puzzles these days. She puts together the Paw Patrol wooden puzzles really fast!
She still loves reading. She can make it through a lot of the early reader books all by herself. And she recognizes words that will surprise you, long words like chocolate, even without picture clues. It’s so fun!!! She’s really reading her summer reading program books.
She’s getting so big! I pulled out all the 4t clothes for her already, including my favorite little cherry shirt outfit. She is SO cute!!!
More pictures! Even some of the grown ups! =)
Aunt Tina came for a visit. It had been so long since she had seen Maia, she wasn’t sure how she would react, but Maia ran right too her with a big hug around the leg and a kiss. So sweet! She and Tina played legos and some board games, and they loved going to the park. My friend Doris came for a visit too! I FINALLY got to meet her kids! Colin is just the same age as Maia, and they played well in the sandbox and with trains! Yay! They came to town for a Memorial Day party hosted by Aisha’s Mom, and at the party we heard a story by one couple who knew each other since they were babies. Which got us thinking…. =) Too funny.
