Perspective

"Look, Mom! We have a garden!"

The rains have really let everything get out of hand. lol

What They're Reading

This crew of ours have been reading like crazy, and we're seeing a lot of growth for each of them. I thought it might be fun to snapshot what each of them are currently reading:

Jack: Jack is still in his non-fiction mode. So far this week, we've read a book about volcanoes, a book about monarch butterflies, and his book about red eyed tree frogs. At school, Jack is reading books from the Henry and Mudge series. He has somewhere around 77 AR points at this point. His goal is to get to 100 AR points by the end of the year so he can earn a trophy. I'm fairly confident he'll reach that goal!

Jason: Jason is still on book four of The Hero of Olympus series called, The House of Hades by Rick Riordan. He is now on page 440/597. At school, he's reading Counting by 7's by Holly Goldberg Sloan. (Funny that this is a book he picked out on his own without knowing it's a book I've taught in class.)

Shawn: Shawn is reading another book by Andrew Clements, Troublemaker. He's about 2/3 of the way through the book. This book has caused quite the stir...the main character draws a picture of his principal as a jackass. Shawn is simultaneously intrigued and freaked out about me reading the word, and there's no way in heck he's going to be saying the word himself. Hehe.

I brought a few picture books home from work this week, but I have to say that they don't seem to have the boys' interest this week. One of them was even Puff the Magic Dragon, but nope. I suppose now that they're reading books about jackass drawing, maybe dragons don't have the same appeal? lol

Question of the Week

If you could grow anything in the yard, what would it be?

Jason: I'd grow genetically modified watermelons that could be grown all year. I'd also grow bamboo to give me a source of wood.

Shawn: I'd have a garden. I would grow tomatoes.

Jack: Plants with thistles. I would grow flowers. Roses with thorns. I would grow a fruit and vegetable tree. I would have pine trees.

Math Whiz

He is doing so well! Keep it up, kiddo!

Challenge Met

For the month of February, Jack's teacher challenged all the kids to read as many chapter books as they could. Jack didn't do so bad...

I feel a bit like I undersold him a bit. Jack and I agreed his goal should be 3 chapter books. He blew that goal out of the water!

Way to go, Jack!

Spelling Bee 2019

Today was the big day! The County Spelling Bee!

Jason was speller #64 out of 127 -- the exact median of the entire group! We decided that was a lucky omen. :)

First up, the spellers were sent to a conference room to do the written portion of the spelling bee. Parents were in a separate room, but we were able to watch the same presentation of words that the kids were getting in their room.

Words for the written spell: (checked words indicate ones he thinks he spelled correctly)

1. abide 🗸
2. learned 🗸
3. diplomat 🗸
4. macaroni 🗸
5. fletcherism 🗸
6. aria 🗸
7. burrito 🗸
8. paradox 🗸
9. physique
10. simile 🗸
11. barrage
12. rhinoceros 🗸
13. pangolin 🗸
14. regatta (unsure how he spelled it)
15. olio 🗸
16. pelotin
17. dungaree

The last 3 words were challenge words - new to them words/not on study lists.

1. inscrutable 🗸
2. pilaster (unsure how he spelled it)
3. visenboden 🗸 (my phone says the word should be spelled vifsenboden, but we can't find that word anywhere. lol)

Then they had 5 vocabulary words to select the definition. Easel was one of those words, but he isn't sure of the other 4 words.

After the written portion of the bee, the kids were allowed to take a 2 hour break. Jay and I headed to the mall to look around and eat a little snack.

After the break, we headed back to the bee's location. They called us all into the main room and announced the spellers who would proceed to the oral round.

Jay didn't make it through to the next round, but despite being disappointed, he was still thrilled to be participating at all. He did a FANTASTIC job, and we are so PROUD of him!!!

What we know:

• According to the posted results, Jay answered 18/25 correctly. 
• We were told that they'd move no more than 35 spellers to the oral round--in the end, it looked like they had about 29 in the oral round. 
• It also looked like they moved spellers with 23-25 words spelled correctly to the oral round. (It didn't give us the scores of the kids in the oral round. We could see that the highest number correct of those who didn't go to the next round was 22/25.
• The kids ranged in ages from 8 years old (3rd grade) through 14 years old (8th grade)
• It didn't look like any 3rd graders went through to the oral round. There were several 4th and 5th graders. It seemed like there were more 6th, 7th, and 8th graders in the final round. 
• We didn't stay until the end of the bee, so we aren't sure who won yet.

After the bee, Jay and I decided to explore a little. The bee was held at a beautiful private college, so for a bit we wandered around, checking things out. Then we went to go have some lunch at a local restaurant.

It was a great day!

Friday Foto

Yay for the weekend! Send some good vibes for this guy...tomorrow is the big spelling bee!