Hispanic Heritage Day

This past Friday was Hispanic Heritage Day at Garrett's school. His classroom did Cuba, and it turned out to be quite a fun day. Leanne was awesome enough to take Summer for the day so that I could help out in his class. This was the first time I have been able to volunteer in his class, so it was nice to get to know some of his classmates.

(PS-family, please go support Leanne as she does Team In Training in support of the LSS. Great charity, great cause, and as a mom of two I know exactly how hard it is to do what she's doing. Please pop in and support her as she has helped me SO MUCH with the kiddos through the course of our friendship)

The parents and his teachers did a great job making decorations for the class.



And thanks to my friend Shelah, we even had some real sugar cane to display on our table!

The kids danced to Cuban music. It was HILARIOUS. They did a conga line too, but somehow I missed getting a shot of Garrett in it. Not at all sure how that happened.
They did portraits in "traditional' Cuban caricatures.

I learned quite a bit about Cuba in the process of gathering things for Garrett's class. PBS has a really amazing special available online about it that I would recommend watching, it was fascinating!

First Day of Kindergarten (Better late than never!)

I have been meaning to post about Garrett's first day of Kindergarten for a while. I haven't for two reasons . . . One is time (I never seem to have any). The other is I am still just not sure how *I* feel about Kindergarten. I like his school, overall, and I like his teacher, but I'm not as in love with it all as I thought I would be. Things are going very slow, they are still reviewing letters, and I feel like Garrett is a little bored and definitely not picking up anything new. But whatever, review is necessary. We're just hanging in and hoping it will improve. He still misses his pre-K teacher. He loves his new teacher, though, and she really is great. Its just a little disheartening to me, I wanted him to LOVE school, but I guess its just the way it goes in the public school system. Suffice to say the jury is still out.

Even though this picture isn't that great, I had to include it because Garrett was super proud of the cute fishie he made for his teacher:

Best friends. They aren't in the same class, which is probably a good thing since they are together pretty much the rest of the time.My two favorite Kindergarteners.
Garrett at his desk.
And, like his father, he has limited patience for photographs. How did he learn to role his eyes so effectively at such an early age??? :-)




They did the most darling project associated with "The Kissing Hand". I received the most concise, complete summary ever given by a five year old of the book from Garrett, it was fabulous.



The diorama we did for "Library Lion"
And of course, Summer, who refused to be in the morning pictures, insisted "Take a picture of ME!"