Third Week of School: Wednesday & Thursday

This is color week in Levi's Kindergarten class. Wednesday was RAINBOW DAY.

A letter was sent home that encouraged the following:

1. Send in a piece of fruit in a rainbow color so the class could make a rainbow salad. He wanted red fruit, and since strawberries are not really in season he picked out 4# of red grapes.

2. Bring a picture of a rainbow. I found a book that had a rainbow in it so I sent that in with him (with the page marked) and later Levi told me that Ms Houchin read a part of the book to the class.

3. Wear rainbow colors on that day. Levi has a shirt with a rainbow on it so he was excited to wear it. Ellie joined in by wearing her rainbow horse shirt.

He came home from school with tons of stuff! He had made a book about colors and numbers, and a rainbow wind sock.  The photos I took were somehow corrupted so I had to take new ones on Thursday, which explains the clothing change.

The windsock is really neat. Ellie tries to wear it on her head like some kind of princess hat. The book has a number and object of color on each page. Below is an example of one of the pages.

Levi drew and colored all the objects written on the page. He did a nice job.

Thursday was BLACK & WHITE day so Levi brought home this super-sized artwork of a skunk.

He continues to love school and usually eats lunch at the cafeteria instead of packing a lunch. The other day it was meatloaf, and I wasn't entirely sure what that meant so I packed him a lunch. He came home and told me "The meatloaf is chicken that they make really hard and it looks great!"

Sometimes Ellie will pose for photos and sometimes she won't. Levi has so much going on right now with school I am trying to find other special things for her to do.

Second week of school: Thursday

The first thing he does when he gets to school, is to put his backpack in his cubby. He played with pegs and they slid down the funnel tube. Then he played with Legos that are like Transformers. The morning snack was crackers - circled crackers. (Sounds like it might have been Ritz). Then Levi made tickets during choice time for the big talent show he is planning for Sunday morning at 11 am. He informs me that he will wake me up at 6 AM so I can get dressed. After that was clean-up time.

Lunch was bean/beef and cheese burritos. Levi says his favorite tortilla was dried out, and it was great. From what I gather is it sounds like it was a chimichanga, like a fried burrito. Also included was 2 pea pods and he ate both. There was also watermelon (his FAVORITE fruit in the whole wide world).  He chose chocolate milk to drink, like he does every day.

The children did not go outside for recess today due to the air quality. There is a lot of smoke and ash in the air from local fires.

After lunch time one group watched a kids' movie about a little chick who takes a walk and all sorts of things happen to it. Levi was not in that group. His group then watched a movie about three colors - red, blue, and yellow.

Today Levi made three new friends: Lily Singer, Elijah, and another boy whose name he doesn't remember. They were calling him by name and saying goodbye to him today when I picked him up.

This is a note we got today from his teacher:
"Levi is such a wonderfully creative boy.  He loves learning new things and always has something to add to the discussions.  He enjoys his classmates, and has made some great playing partners."

Tomorrow Levi has Dragon Drills and Library.

First week: Thursday

Today Levi tried out the cafeteria food for the first time. He said it was very good (Cheese Quesadilla, Steamed Rice, Baby Carrots, Garbanzo Beans, Watermelon, Milk) and was quite excited to find out that they had TWO kinds of milk - regular and chocolate. He said he spent so much time eating that he didn't realize that his class had gone out to recess and by the time he got outside they blew the whistle to come in. 

He reported that he was so quiet during quiet time that he earned a Star and a Hershey's Kiss and the class with the most stars at the end will win a trophy. 

Here are the projects he worked on today.  A Raccoon puppet and a school house that opens up with objects on the inside. He is learning how to use scissors and glue, and continued that trend after he got home. We had a big project that took over the kitchen table,  he and Ellie both enjoying craft time.

First week: Wednesday

Things seem to be going fairly well however today he did have to sit in a chair for awhile as a punishment for touching the electronics.

The school bus and cowboy were homework from the first day. However they never came out of his  backpack and he brought them home again so maybe they were just additional projects for fun.

Today's crafts were a sheep and school objects and a crayon (below)

He sure comes home with some cute stuff. I am hoping a photograph will be sufficient for his memories as I honestly can't see myself holding onto all of this stuff for life. Am I the only one who feels that way?  I feel guilty for not being more sentimental but the reality is we have a very small house and not much space to store things. If he is going to make 2+ crafts a day that will add up too fast!

Levi's take on Kindergarten

We picked up Levi at 11:20 this morning. As we got to the classroom the students were all lined up at the door to go to the cafeteria for lunch. Mrs. Houchin saw us and let Levi know that we were here. He had his backpack and jacket and was ready to go. The first thing he said to us was "I want to stay for the whole day tomorrow!" Mrs. Houchin noted that there were no problems and he had a great first day.

We had gotten a check in the mail today for about $9 from the guy who stole our motorcycle last year. He is slowly paying us back for the deductible. So we used that to take Levi out for ice cream.

Levi said he had done some coloring and made a book and played on the playground (he played on the slide and pretended to be a fire fighter). He showed us his book while we were at the bank. He read it to us. He had written an "I" on all the pages in the right spot. On the back cover he had written his name in true Levi fashion, all in caps except for the i which had a big round circle for the dot.  Levi said the rule in the classroom was that the teacher used the stapler, although he had cut the pages, colored and put it together.

When we asked him if he made any new friends he said "Yes, a boy that has the same shoes that I do at home." He did not remember his name, but maybe it was Andrew. He said he also saw Thomas or Taylor during recess, but wasn't sure which one, who followed him around. He asked him why he was following him and Thomas or Taylor replied "Because you're my friend."

Levi also reports that he washed his hands twice this morning. Once before snack time and once before lunch. The snack today was a cup of water with two cookies that looked like Oreos but they came in a purple wrapper. One was Oreo colored and one was tannish.  He had two cups of water and the cookies were very good.

There were four table areas with color-coordination  between the legs of the tables and the baskets on top of them. Red, blue, yellow and green. Levi chose the red table for snack time, and was at the yellow table earlier on for craft time.

He can't wait to go back tomorrow for the whole day. That means he gets to eat lunch at the cafeteria. The menu for lunch is Sloppy Joe on whole grain bun, green beans, mixed salad greens, peaches, milk. Levi is not sure about the Sloppy Joe so we might pack him something.

*Update* Apparently I have been home too long and forgot how to read a calendar. Thank you to my friend for pointing this out to me! Tomorrow's menu is Whole Wheat Spaghetti, meatballs, green beans, mixed salad greens, apple slices and milk. I have to say their overall menu looks good on paper. We'll see how Levi likes it.

 

Levi's First Day of School

Well the day has come, and Levi is ready.

We had an early morning start. The alarm went off at 6:15 am and I hit snooze. When it went off the second time I heard the scurry of little feet in the next room as Levi climbed down from his top bunk. He did not come out right away and when he emerged he was completely dressed and ready to go! He and I had talked about what to wear to school the night before as I was getting him ready. He wore an outfit from Grandma Susan that said LEVI'S across the front.

His backpack came a couple of days ago in the mail. We decided to look on eBay for something special to him that would also be different then the average pack from Wal-Mart. He really liked a NASA one that was shaped like the space shuttle. Unfortunately, it is a little smaller then standard size so I am not sure if it will work for the whole school season. We'll see.

No time to dawdle, Matt and I arose and got breakfast going right away. Levi had requested biscuits and gravy for breakfast so I made those while Matt made the eggs and potatoes.

We were joined by the local grandparents - Oma and Jerry & Gail for breakfast. (Gail is hidden behind me in this pic)

Ready for prayer. Levi wanted to say the blessing today. He usually volunteers but today was extra special.

 He proudly posed for all the obligatory photos.

Showing off his backpack, as Ellie ventures out to see what we're doing.

 How about a smile Ellie? She's not too sure about all this.

The comical thing was that we took two Suburban's to get Levi to school this morning. Between all of the grandparents and our family there were 7 of us. We probably could have all fit in one but we had ours full of stuff.  Levi proudly posed in front of the school for me. He was so excited.

Family photo. By now Levi was anxious to be done with the photos and get to his classroom!!

 Mrs Houchin greeted Levi upon his arrival and showed him where to put his backpack in his cubby. He said hello to his friend Indi and then raced off to find the Legos.  Indi was busy planning a 'picnic' on the other side of the room.

He knelt down and started playing before I could  blink an eye. Matt and I looked at each other and realized he was ready. No need for us to hang around. I went over to say goodbye and to let him know I would pick him up for lunch (we're starting out with half-days but he could decide to do a full day at any time). He stood up to give me a hug and then it was right back to playing. I admit I got a little teary.

Here are the names of the kids in Levi's class. So far I think we only know Indi (Indira), but in time I hope to get to know all  of them. I am going to volunteer in the classroom on occasion until I get a job so that will give me a chance to be more involved.  The school starts the Kindergartners out a week later then the rest of the school, and then they are divided up for the first two days. For example, half the class attends Monday, the other half attends Tuesday, and then they are all combined for Wednesday - on. This way it is not so overwhelming and they can get to know each other in smaller groups.

We can't wait to hear how it went!