Running Club

Oh wow! I am so happy with how well running club is going so far this year. We started October 2nd and went for two weeks before we stopped because it was so dark in the mornings. We decided to wait until after daylight savings. I asked the school if we could post the totals at school and they gave us part of a board to use. I got the totals up before we start again this week. We plan to post the kids' names when they reach half marathon, marathon, double marathon, and so on.

So far, there are two kids that have reached the half marathon~13.5 miles. Jack is one of them and is super competitive. He is in the lead with over 15 miles so far and wants to keep it that way. We will see how far he runs this year. Our group total is 355 miles year-to-date.

Anna's Chapter Books

We are so proud of this girl. Learning to read was not the easiest for her. She has worked so hard this past last year. She started in first grade right at grade level and missed testing into accelerated Reader (AR) until second semester last year. This year she worked her way from level 2.1 (second grade, month one) to 3.0 in the first quarter. She made three AR goals first quarter, earning 24 points by taking tests after she read her books. At conferences, her teacher gave me her AR log because she had filled it up with books she had read. She read all our books at home in her range and tested on them at school, and continued to check out extra ones from the library. On Thursday, she was allowed to check out a chapter book, which is a big deal for these second grade kids. She was so proud. She finished it Friday and reread it today out loud to John and I. She is ready to test on it on Monday and will hopefully do well. She wanted me to take a picture of her with her book. What a hard worker.

Little Monkeys

The girls picked out their Halloween costumes for next year...while they were marked on clearance. They decided on sock monkeys for next year.

Trolls

The girls had fun at a birthday party and got to see the movie Trolls!

Toyland

We took the kids right after school to the Toyland on the Bentonville Square. We go every year with the McCartys. It get so busy, so we go directly from school. We were only an hour or so before we were ready to go home. The kids got to play with some toys and got a few freebies, too.

 The crew

 The Santa was made of legos!

 We joked we would show this at their wedding some day...and Jack stepped over to the side real quick!

Writing Paragraphs

Some of the girls' paragraphs. They have learned so much this year. I really like this step up to writing program they do at the school. Jack was not taught this way, and I wish he was.

FAKE SNAKE

This snake scared all the kids and myself. It was sitting on our sidewalk (the day after Halloween) and I thought it was real enough to have my neighbor come over with a rake and a stick to kill it. He told me it was dead. Jack barely picked it up by the tail and put it in the bag and we threw it away. Jack texted his picture to Aunt Julie, Uncle Neil and Grandmom. Uncle Neil told us it was not real...John came home and said, why didn't it stretch out when Jack held it by the tail. I don't think it is real...

...and then I remembered I had some play snakes in the candy dish and I was sitting on the sidewalk right where the kids found the snake the next day. Too bad it was not a purple or orange. I think I would have figured that one out...(I hope)

FAKE SNAKE
(BUT WE WERE SCARED ANYWAY)