It's Spring...We've blossomed!

I have large trees in my backyard and what seems like overnight, they have leafed out and have come to life.  In the same way, seemingly overnight, my crew has grown and blossomed into almost second graders.  Over the break they all grew at least an inch and each one of them seems more grown up.

You may not find comfort in hearing this!  I know as a parent sometimes my childrens' growing up made me happy and sometimes very melancholy as they headed towards becoming more and more independent from me.

Regardless of how we feel about their maturing,  it is all good from their perspective.  In these last weeks I'm pulling back more and more when I know what they ask for help with can be tackled on their own.  Struggling and persevering are such great challenges for each of us and they help us grow as people.

I'm doing my best to help grow your children.  And our wonderful IA teachers do the same at REMS.
What our crew did during this week's belaying was amazing and thrilling to watch.  They all took on personal challenges and they were so very pleased with themselves when they persevered.

Hooray for them!  Enjoy these pictures of this week's P.E. action.

New Expedition! Dirt and Worms

We all love a good mystery, don't we?  To introduce our new expedition to the crews we kept them in suspense, merely telling them they were going to do some scientific observations in dirt.  In small groups, manned with popsicle sticks, the children poked around and peered into the tubs of soil....and then 
SQUEALS AND OOOH'S AND AHH'S!  WORMS!  What fun!

In the weeks to come our worms will live in a worm farm in our room.  We will make observations in our worm journals and we'll learn how earthworms help make our soil rich for growing food.  (by the way, worm "droppings" are called "castings" not "poop".  I'm going to refrain from saying the "p" word at the risk of loosing the crew daily to such discussions!  Ahh...first grade.  That kind of talk is inevitable and hilarious to them.  

Second to this we will learn about soil and how our earth's resources are limited.  

Enjoy the pictures from our first day with the worms!

 

ASM

What fun we had at ASM today!  The children really enjoyed themselves and all of us came away happy and pleased with our performance.  I totally teared up watching them during our sharing time.  They are truly amazing little people and I'm so proud of each one of them!  

A special shout out to Bella Ford who was too sick to come to school today after practicing her list of b-day names so hard over break and to Macy Key for stepping in as her under study at the last minute.  Those birthday names were tough to tackle without practice! (where were all of the Jones' and Smith's when we needed them!) 

Here are a few pictures to enjoy!

They talked us into a goofy photo at the end.:)