school’s end

Posted on May 29th, 2014 by mountain girl  |  2 Comments »

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Today the kids are finishing up their last day of school, and then…freedom.

Caleb will soon be on his way to New Mexico to spend the the summer with his mom, with hints of another trip to Disney World.  David is heading off to NYC for a week to work at the Tony Awards (in new haircut, black tux, and super-shiny boots!)  Us redheads? We have summer plans of our own–slightly more laid-back, but just as exciting.  More about that later.

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Yesterday Zia’s class had a field day. Half the day was spent playing games at an open field park, the other half at a water park.  We picked up Caleb after his finals and went to meet her at the water park for the afternoon.

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Thursday Caleb’s class (and the whole middle and high school) went to a Rockies ballgame in Denver.  He had a great time and told us about eating nachos and fried Twinkies. He seemed to actually like the fried Twinkies (while I can’t think of anything more disgusting!)

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Here’s a picture he took at Coors Field.

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A couple of weeks ago, Zia’s class sang On top of Spaghetti in the Spring Arts Festival at school.

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They all sneezed at the end.  Now we sing that song all the time, and Cash always sneezes at the end.

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Zia’s art class made foot pots using their own feet as templates.

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She got second place!

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This artwork that she did was also displayed at the Arts Festival.  It’s a collage in the style of Romare Bearden, an African-American artist and jazz musician.

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She exhibited her naked egg project at the science fair.  We went to see it, but they took the projects back to the classroom early.  Boo-hoo.

Being in school has not been without its lumps and bumps for her.  She has longed to stay snugly in bed many a morning, away from kids and teachers and work plans.  After working one-on-one with me in home school, she has had to adjust to the self-directed routine of her Montessori classroom, and it hasn’t been easy.

She stuck with it and is doing much better now, but there were a few tearful mornings, and even some crying at school. I wanted to snatch her right out of that classroom and homeschool her again, but I felt she needed a chance to adjust and then decide which was better for her.

On days when she seemed overtired, I told her she could stay home for the day.  But just knowing she could stay home was enough to make her determined to go to school, contrary little thing that she is.  And seeing Caleb get on the bus without her was more than she could bear–we ended up hopping in the car and racing her to school after the bus left without her.

And now she is already talking about how she can hardly wait for second grade.  I think she’ll have the hang of it by next year, but if she ever wants to come back to home school, I guess I’ll just have to take her in–sigh.

And now–hello summer vacation!

2 Responses to “school’s end”

  1. appleshoe says on :

    Happy Summer vacation. It looks like it is off to a good start. I didn’t realize that you were a Montessori family. I will have to hit you up for some information in a few years. For some reason I thought you were a Waldorf family. Have a happy summer.

  2. Hannah says on :

    I am glad you will “take her in” if she chooses a different schooling style lol

    Were you homeschooled? If so was it hard to be OK with her going off to school? (I reeeally hope Bunny never wants to go to “school” lol)