Monday, August 23, 2021

Summer Reading

This summer was a busy one with a week of Oklahoma State Parks camp, 2 weeks of art camp, and summer school in July. We still read a bunch and had a lot of fun! This was Carter's 9th time completing the summer reading program and Elise's 7th! It was pretty cool to get out and look at all their medals from previous years.


Books

  • Who Will Plant a Tree? by Jerry Pallotta- This was a really neat book about how people and animals help plant seeds in various ways. It was a neat way to discuss why seeds are made the way they are. Elise's favorite part was the picture of poop.
  • Plant the Tiny Seed by Christie Matheson- This was an interactive book where you touched parts of the page and did different actions to help the seed grow. I was really wishing I'd known about his book during the spring when we were talking about plants in preschool. The preschoolers love the books where they get to interact with them and this was a great way to hit on the different things plants need to grow as well.
  • Noodleheads series by Tedd Arnold, Martha Hamilton, and Mitch Weiss- I saw one of these books at the library and thought Elise would like it because she loves macaroni and cheese and she's obsessed with Fly Guy books. Tedd Arnold writes Fly Guy. I regretted it a bit because she loved them so much we read them over and over. I got really tired of them, but I'll read any book she likes, so it was a win overall! We ended up getting the rest of the books in the series from the library later.
  • Mrs. Mole, I'm Home! by Jarvis- Elise loved this one and had me read it over and over. Carter thought the worms on each page were funny and laughed about that.
  • Guinness World Records: Daring Dogs- This was an I Can Read! book that Elise picked out. She usually pulls exclusively from that section at the library. Carter loved it and read it aloud to me in the car on the way to summer school. Elise liked it so much she took it with us when we went to pick in Audrey's garden so Mike could read it. They read it over and over. Carter has gotten really into these kinds of books. He picked out a Guinness World Records book at Goodwill and reads it over and over.
  • Quest by Aaron Becker- This was a wordless picture book and we all loved it. On the cover it said something about continuing the Journey so we thought maybe there was a book that went before it. There was and there was also another one that came after, but this one was our favorite!
  • Don't Bring Your Dragon series by Julie Gassman- We got Don't Bring Your Dragon to the Last Day of School at the library and the kids loved it. While Oma was visiting, they got her to order them all the books in the series. They read them over and over. I borrowed one about recess to read at school and my class really liked it. The books reminded me of the How Do Dinosaurs? series by Jane Yolen.

Saturday, August 21, 2021

Wordless Saturday Apparently

With the kids in summer school and then staying with my parents for a week and then my mom watching them during the day while I went to new teacher trainings, I didn't take many pictures. Then add in how busy I was and I just realized it has been about a month since I posted pictures, so I figured I better go ahead and do so!

Ty bought a new to him bike.


Picture courtesy of my mom while she was watching the kids during all my trainings.

Picture courtesy of my mom while she was watching the kids during all my trainings.

Picture courtesy of my mom while she was watching the kids during all my trainings.
Evening walk/run/bike ride to the splash pad.


Birthday morning birthday buddy run!


The kids were all dressed and had their hair combed when I got home so they could impress me.

Snuggles with Skippy






Elise helping Ty with the back splash.


Sunset during an evening walk.


Skippy doing a virtual training with me.


Listening to the song my birthday card played.



Making unicorn slime.


Lil Cutie grew a tumor a while ago and passed away at the end of July so Elise picked out a new hamster.

Introducing Sweetie! She picked the one that looked the most like Katie.









The kids wanted to go on my run with me. Elise ran a half mile and then we dropped her back off, Carter went the whole way with me.




Black Wall Street History Center



Matching shorts!

Walking with my Junior Ranger to the library.

Tesla loves her Oma!


Elise saw me prepping birthday bags for my classroom and wanted to help so I let her decorate them.

Birthday cookie from the school!

Amazing ladies I get to teach with in my hallway!

2nd grade team in our building!

Katie and Sweetie meeting for the first time.



My traditional surprise first day of school book from Ty.


Ready to leave for my first day of school. Mom was the only one awake when I left so she took some pictures.

Ready to leave for my first day of school. Mom was the only one awake when I left so she took some pictures.

Home after the first day. It was so awesome to come home to the kids and mom already there!


I tutored Grant when he was in 2nd grade. He's now a sophomore in high school!





Helping to make waffles the night before her first day of school for their traditional first day of school treat breakfast, waffles with nutella.



There wasn't enough paper left from wrapping Elise's book, but Ty figured out how to make it work for Carter's.

It was almost like he was excited I had to go to bed so early. He was all set up on the futon to play on his phone and eat M&M's when I headed for bed.

Zoned out on their tablets after their 2 hour bus ride home from school on the first day.

Ready for her 2nd day of school.

Special candy from a student at school.