To Austin, on your 7th...

Austin Lane,
 
You're 7 years old today! I just can't believe that my baby isn't such a baby anymore. Today you are spending the day at Grandma's house with your cousins, but I hope one of them will read this post to you before the day is over. (hint hint, Kaulyn!)

Aaron, you, Kaulyn and Luke at the fair

Austin, I could not be more proud to be your mom. You have a heart of gold and a personality to match. You love everyone you meet within minutes of meeting them. You love to help anyone that needs it, and you pray for people that need prayers. To be as young as you are, you sympathize (I know, big word. Get Kaulyn to explain that one to you.) with people very well. We were at some friends house the other day and a little girl you had played with for hours got in trouble just before we left, and you said, "I feel bad for her, she's not having a very good day." And you were truly sad for her. That shows that you really care, and I pray that never changes in you.

I guess you thought Aaron could use a kiss right then.

Lane, Aaron, and you at the fair.

You also can be very happy for people when something good happens to them. Recently, one of the teachers at school got (and is in the process of adopting) twin boys. You were so excited for her, and you thanked God that night in your prayer that she got those babies. Made my eyes water that night! You always think about your day when you pray, and instead of asking for things, you thank God for the good things that happened. I love that about you.

You and I on western day at school.

Dippin Dots at SeaWorld in San Antonio

Missing front tooth...

One of my favorite things to do with you is our 'mommy and me' days. If daddy and Aaron are gone somewhere, you will plan a day for us. It usually involves Chuck E Cheese, the mall, going to the movies, etc...I love that one on one time with you. You tell me all the time that you want to marry me and just can't seem to understand that I'm already married to daddy and just can't do that. But you are about as persistent as your daddy is, so you seem to remind me of this at least once a week, just in case I've changed my mind about being married to daddy. But even though I will never marry you, I am honored to be your first love.

You begged me to put money in this massage chair at the mall on one of our 'mommy and me' days, and you enjoyed every second of it!

You love a fire in the fireplace.

Some of my favorite things that you're doing these days: You ask everyone how their day was, even if you were with them all day. You tell someone that you need to tell them a secret, and then you kiss them in the ear. You love playing in the sand at home, and could spend hours out there without realizing how much time has passed. You love to sing and dance. You know lots of songs and lots of different kinds of music, and you are a good little singer. You like to get to church early so you'll have time to go around and talk to everyone in the building before church starts. Our preacher even mentioned you in his talk the other day and said that he could always count on a hug from you (and I didn't even know that you did that!).

My little Harry Potter.

Petting dolpins at SeaWorld.

We were reading to Blake one night at their house. This was so sweet, and Blake loved it.

I really wish that there was a way that I could freeze you at this age. It's such a great age. There's still a lot of 'little boy' left in you that I know will be fading away within the next few years, but I just want to hold on to that. You have such a sweet and loving spirit, and I hope that never changes, no matter how old you get.

You love Bella.

Arms wide open...you in a nutshell :)

I hope that you always know that me and daddy love you so much and we are both so happy that you are part of our family...

even if I can't marry you. ;)

LOVE

Love,
Mommy

Follow the Yellow Brick Road...

It was an great week to be a first grader at the school where I work. Not that I am a first grader, but I do work with them everyday and I also happen to be living under the same roof as one very vocal first grade little boy, and we have agreed that this week was "super cool" in every way.

This week our first graders got to step out of the norm and enter the Land of Oz. You know it's going to be a good week when you are watching the Wizard of Oz, eating popcorn, and drinking Sprite on Monday morning, rather than sitting in a classroom and learning your new spelling words for the week!

I was surprised at how many of the kids had never seen or heard of the movie, and it was funny when they started asking why the movie was 'gray' (because if you think about it, the black and white part really does just look gray...funny how it takes a first grader to point that out.

Anyway, while the kids were all in the cafeteria watching the movie, I was busy laying the yellow brick road that I made out of butcher paper and laminated (so that it could be walked on all week), so the kids would be able to walk down the yellow brick road as soon as they got out of the movie.

The yellow brick road in the making.

The finished product.

We had also already put up our own Land of Oz, house with a tornado over it, and a rainbow, but the kids didn't "get" it at all until they saw the movie.

When the kids got out of the movie, the looks on their little faces were priceless. The smiles, the big eyes, and the skipping made all of the hard work worth it.

And our week was just beginning...

Just for the week, we threw out the reading books, spelling words, and grammar books. Instead, all of our activities were centered around different aspects of the movie. The lesson plans actually involved more common core standards than a regular week would have, but the kids didn't even notice because of how much fun they were having.

One thing that we did in all of our classrooms was that we put a witches hat with caution tape around it (remember when the wicked witch melts in the end?). It became like another student in the classroom for the week.

One of the writings they got to do was "if I had ruby slippers" (or 'sneakers' for the boys). Some said they would click their heels together and go to a water park. Some just talked about how happy they would be to just get to wear them. My child said he would make them take him to Branson.

The boy loves him some Branson.

We had the 1st grade hall full of red glitter after we hung our slippers up!

Another writing was 'If I had a Fairy Godmother', where the kids could write about what they would wish for if they had someone who could make their wishes come true. It really is amazing how a first grader's mind works. Some wanted help with homework, some wanted money, and some just wanted to be happy. They were quite touching.

We also got to let them choose their favorite character from the movie, which introduced them to the concept of a bar graph. They got to talk about why that character was their favorite and tell the class about it.

One important life skill that these kids will need to know how to do is to get a presentation together and how to present it in front of the class. We assigned them a character, and had them defend that character, or pretend they were asked to play the part of that character in the movie and write different reasons they would enjoy being that character. This was actually one of my favorite projects because they got to break up into groups and talk about and write some of their favorite things about that character.

After they got it all on their poster, they got to stand in front of the class as a group and present it to the class.

Our art teacher even got into our theme as well and had the kids make witches in their art class for the week.

We had parents that also got involved and sent us Wizard of Oz cupcakes, snacks, and treats.

How cute are these cupcakes?!

And this broom stick treat bag!

And since Dorothy's house was in a tornado during the movie, we had some material over tornadoes. We talked about what to do if you are in a tornado, we did a tornado demonstration using Sprite bottles, and we watched videos on Youtube showing real tornadoes and the damage they can cause.

We also used a lot of compare/contrast thinking and introduced the kids to Venn Diagrams. We read them the story of Cinderella and had them tell what was alike and what was different. We did the same comparing the good witch and the bad witch but I didn't get a picture of that one.

There were also several activities based on colors and rainbows. In one of those, we gave the kids a mini bag of skittles. We had them count how many were in their bag, sort them into colors, and write which color they had the most of. Then we gave them another bag and had them to the same thing.

Ok, did you know that when you grab a mini bag of skittles, you could be getting as few as 10 skittles or as many as 18? I was shocked. How does the counting machine at the skittle factory even work??

We had a worksheet called 'A Color By Any Other Name', where the kids went through their crayons and found colors that looked yellow (for example), but was called 'dandilion' instead. Someone at the Crayola factory has fun with these. There were a few I couldn't even pronounce. After that, we did an experiment with milk and food coloring, showing the kids how we can mix primary colors together to make other colors (yellow and blue make green). They got to give their guess on what they thought, and then we got to watch their eyes light up when they see that their guess was correct.

Another rainbow activity we had was practicing the kids skills on estimation. We gave them a paper that had a rainbow and clouds on it, and then a separate sheet of paper that had an estimation chart on it. We talked about how rainbows are always in the same order (thank you, Roy G Biv), and from that the kids made their estimations on how many fruit loops of each color they would need and how many marshmallows they would need. Then we gave them fruit loops and marshmallows and let them glue them onto their papers. After the project was complete, they went back and counted how many of each color they actually used and wrote it down. Then they could see how close they were on their estimation.

On Friday afternoon, we got all of the first graders together again in one classroom and let them watch the movie again. It was a great wrap-up to our Wizard of Oz week!

 

Wednesday was Halloween, and we thought it would be fun to dress up as the characters from the Wizard of Oz, mainly because we knew our kids would go crazy and totally 'get' it. And we were right. We all had a great time playing our part, but more than that, our kids had a blast with it.

I love how we are standing under the rainbow, on the yellow brick road, with the Land of Oz in the background in this pic.

So this was our Wonderful World of Oz week. It was so much fun, but I don't think I'm the only one that is ready to go back to the routine of grammar, spelling, and reading next week! I am completely worn out, but it was SO worth it!!

**If you are a teacher and are interested in the curriculum we used this week, click here and you can look at the blog we purchased it from, and order it for your school.