End of School Fun

The end of the school year is always full of all sorts of fun activities. Here are a few of the things we did.

Gwen's kindergarten graduation and end of the year concert.

Gwen with her kindergarten teacher.

Bonnie with her caricature of Barack Obama that was in the Peoria Arts Festival.

Nathan performing with the band in the Peoria Arts Festival. Nate and Bonnie both had other concerts at the end of the year, but we forgot to take pictures. They were great though.

And summertime head-shaving. The last week of school Nate's class had a wax museum of inventors that each student drew out of a hat. He got Clarence Birdseye, as in Birdseye frozen vegetables. Clarence Birdseye was bald so in a show of support and male bonding all of the boys stayed up late the night before his report and shaved their heads completely. Ben let the boys and Bonnie use the clippers on his head for the first part.Then they pulled out the Bic. They loved it and Ben has continued to keep his head shaved. We'll see how long he goes. I have to admit, it's kind of growing on me... obviously not on him though.

Brick Wall

Sometimes I feel like I am banging my head against a brick wall. Jared and Gwen were both invited to apply to attend another school in our district for gifted services. I think the application has more questions then some of my college applications had. There are questions for Ben and I to answer as well as a page narrative we have to write about our children's lives (They are only 5 and 7 how much can we tell unless we go into detail about potty training and stuff) and why we feel they would benefit from gifted services. There are also four questions that the kids have to answer. I would have a hard time answering these questions for me, but getting a kindergartener and a first grader to answer them is like pulling teeth. My very favorite conversation during the process took place tonight between myself and Jared about this question: Write about a book, movie, song, piece of art, or poem that has made a strong influence on you. This was after several other attempts to get him to understand the point of the question.

Me: Okay, what is your favorite movie?

Jared: Return of the Jedi.

Me: Great! Why do you like that movie?

Jared: Because there's light sabers and guns and things blow up.

Me: Alright... Did you learn a lesson from that movie?

Jared: That if your Dad is evil you should try to kill him.

Good thing Ben's not evil.