Elementary School Visits

As school winded down for this year, I made lots of visits to the elementary school for all sorts of "year-end activities."

The second grade does an ABC countdown, so for the last 26 days of school they have a fun activity based on a letter of the alphabet each day.  Some of the activities are pretty simple but most are pretty involved.  Honestly, I felt some things were pretty brave of the teachers to do, such as tie-dye t-shirts with 5 classes of 2nd graders!  Anyways, everything turned out great and Paige had lots of fun.

One of my first visits to the school was for the Volunteer Appreciation Breakfast.  This is just a "thank you" breakfast for all the people who have volunteered throughout the school year.  Nice thing is we can bring our kids.  That morning the weather was so perfect that Paige and I decided to walk to school.  We also wanted to do a trial run, as next year the district is cutting back on bus service and my girls will no longer get to ride the bus.  It was a good idea to walk so I could burn off of few calories from my donut breakfast!  The breakfast happened to be on "rock and roll" day so Paige was in costume.  I suggested we put a bandana around her head and she go as Brett Michaels, but she was like, "who is that?"  So we went for more of an 80's punk look.

My next visit to the school was later in the week for the 2nd grade "Parent Picnic" as part of the ABC countdown.  This is a pretty big deal.  The kids plan and practice a class presentation for their parents and then we all go outside for a picnic lunch and to play games.

Parents are responsible for providing lunch and blankets and the kids make cute eating place mats.  Many of the parents go out and buy a lunch to bring as a special treat.  Of course, Paige is such a picky eater, I wasn't sure what to bring.  She wouldn't really appreciate a McDonald's meal.  So in the end, I bought her a fancy bagel with cream cheese and then I made a nice yogurt parfait with fruit and granola.  She was pretty happy with it.  It was windy that day but the air was warm.  Paige and I found a perfect shady place to eat under a tree.  After lunch, Paige and I kicked a soccer ball around and then we flew a kite with some of her friends.  Too bad I had to eventually go home and she back to class.

Paige and her teacher, Mrs. Caston

My last visit to the school was for Field Day.  Originally, I didn't sign up to help, because I was busy and they had enough other parents offer to help.  Fortunately for us, we have PE teachers who organize field day, they just need parents to help run games.  Of course, the scheduled day for Field Day was rained out and so an alternate day was scheduled and not every parent that orginally signed up could come on the alternate day.  So, I ended up volunteering for Field Day and it was fine.  I ran this game which involved throwing about 200 tennis balls into buckets--thats a lot of balls. 

The best part was that I got to watch the tug-of-war challenges between the classes.  It was pretty funny.  The teachers take this very seriously, okay not seriously, but they all want the bragging rights of winning.  Paige's teacher was so cute. 

She told the kids, "get your muscles ready!" 

"You have to win the tug-of-war if you want to go to 3rd grade!"

Then she led them in cheers of, "Team Caston!"

I'm sorry to report that Team Caston did not win, but fortunately they all get to go to 3rd grade anyway.

For the re-match, Mrs. Caston grabbed the end of the rope and
pulled but even that didn't help