School News

It's the time of year when the children have A LOT going on at their school. Last week alone there were three events I attended.



Some of the photos here are of the school's butterfly release. Over the past three or four weeks students have been watching the metamorphosis stages, from egg to larva/caterpillar to chrysalis to full adult-stage butterflies. Finally, last week the butterflies were ready to experience the world outside the terrarium in which they were growing. Everyone gathered outside, including parents who wanted to attend, and all the preschoolers and kindergarteners were given flowers. Elementary students carefully took the butterflies out of the terrarium and walked them over to the younger kids and let the butterflies crawl onto their flowers. I guess the weather was just right so the butterflies were eager to stay around for a bit before flying off. Very cool!



A couple pics are from the elementary students' French Cafe. The 1st-3rd graders learned some French songs and dances and hosted an ice-cream and coffee cafe with entertainment. Parents of the preschoolers could bring their children to the elementary building to be waited on. Our "server" was so attentive. I was very impressed. Their menus were in French. Basically it was vanilla ice cream with maple syrup, a special cookie and either coffee or tea.

This week they have their annual art show on Thursday. So, be on the lookout for those pictures. Next week they have Wheel's Day, when they get to bring their bicycles to school and ride around in the parking lot. The following week, their last of the school year, they have two field trips and the annual school-wide picnic at a local park.

Yesterday Michael and I took Anna to the public elementary school in our district to get her kindergarten screening done. She seems to be pretty excited about going to the "Big Kids" school next year. (Next year, Alexander will put in his second year at Montessori while Anna will move on to the public school.) In the library, they screened a small group of kids at the same time (three others of whom were from her Montessori school, coincidentally). When they first started, I heard Anna announce to all the screeners, "My mom said I'm going to knock your socks off." To which they all laughed heartily. Cute, though a little embarrassing for me. But, hey, at least it shows that I'm doing my best to boost my kids' self-confidence. One of the ladies looked over and gave me a thumbs up.

She lived up to her proclamation, though. I knew she would. They used the DIAL-3 screening. If I may be a proud mommy, Anna was well above average for her age. In all but two areas she scored at the 6- and 7-year-old level (she's not 5 yet). Overall, she was at the top rung in scoring for language and motor skills and two rungs from the top in concepts (I think this category was one in which she pointed to her ankle as her heel — my fault, I guess, as we haven't taught that body part; and also she appeared confused about the meaning of the preposition "between". I can't remember if there was something else here that she missed.)

As far as my own school news goes, I'm about to wrap up my first semester back in college after getting my first degree 15 years ago. I am officially done with three courses and will be done with the fourth by the end of the week after I submit one more assignment. Y'all, I think I'm going to do pretty good!