You Know it's Close to the End of School When...

...you're at your child's school more than you're home and the kids start bringing home backpacks full of papers!

ZACH

The kindergarten at Zach's school had an Author Sing-a-long with Mr. Waterhouse today that parents were invited to.  I had no idea what an author sing-a-long was but now I do.  Until today I also didn't know who Mr. Waterhouse was but now I know that he's a retired elementary school teacher that has become a performer, songwriter, guitarist and puppeteer.  The program that he did with the kindergarten involved 3 visits, 2 to learn a song about authors and 1 for the actual performance.   There are 5 kindergarten classes and each class sang a song about a different author.  Here's Zach's class right before the program began.



Of course Zach's class was the last one to perform.  The first class sang about Tomie dePaola (author of Strega Nona).  The second class sang about Jan Brett (author of The Mitten).  The third class sang about Lois Ehlert (author of Color Zoo and Planting a Rainbow).  The 4th class sang about Joanna Cole (she's the author of The Magic School Bus series).  Finally, are you still with me, Zach's class went up on stage.  They sang about one of my favorite author's, Eric Carle (Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?).  Every child had a picture/drawing to hold during the performance and the songs had motions for the kids to do.  I did take a video of him singing (or sort of singing) but once again I'm having problems uploading it here.  I will try to investigate that and find out why.  If I ever get my videos uploaded I'll let you know in a new post. 

After the kids all sang they got to sit back and enjoy some of Mr. Waterhouses songs.  They were silly so the kids enjoyed it. 

Zach has been bringing home papers and workbooks for a week now.  Today's papers included the following.  A paper he wrote about butterflies with a picture of him with a butterfly on his face!  In case you can't make out what he wrote he said, "Butterflies can fly.  Butterflies have wings.  Butterflies are symmetrical." 

The other paper I thought was interesting was this one:

He said, "I am going to North Carolina with my sisters or I am going to South Carolina."  I love his spelling!  He always talks about North Carolina.

MEGAN
Megan brought this certificate home a couple days ago, it's for academic honors.  Woohoo!  Way to go Megan!

I would have gone to the awards assembly had I known.  She said she didn't know she was getting it and was surprised when they called her name.  I'm very proud of her. 

KRISTIN
I have no pictures to post.  I would if she had gone to her 8th grade graduation ceremony this past Wednesday.  Since it was optional though she decided not to go because she didn't want to walk across the stage and have all eyes on her, for a whole 5 seconds!  I don't know what she's going to do when she graduates high school! 

LAUREN
Today was her last day of school, she finished her exams and doesn't have to go next week.  As far as I know (I haven't gotten her report card yet) she is now a senior!  Wow.  Next year will be interesting!