Johnny Appleseed Day

Lauren's Kindergarten class celebrated Johnny Appleseed Day at her school on Friday.  It brought back memories  for me as a first grade teacher.  I would take my students to the Apple Barn in Pigeon Forge to celebrate Johnny Appleseed Day.  While Lauren's class stayed at their school, they had a great time with their Apple Festival.  I got to help out with one of the stations.  I manned the Apple taste-testing station and graphed which apples the kids liked best.  I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with all of Lauren's classmates.  I loved volunteering in Lauren's classroom.  I wish I was able to do that more often. 

The kids were encouraged to dress up like Johnny Appleseed for that day.  My sweet friend Cindy loaned me a vest and plaid shirt for Lauren to wear.  I must say, that made the outfit just perfect.  Thanks Cindy!!
Here are a few pictures of "Lauren Appleseed".

I love how Lauren is looking up at my Dad in this picture 

                              Lauren and my Dad                                 

                  Classic Lauren pose with her head tilted                        

 Lauren in her classroom

                                                    

Lauren's class with Mr. and Mrs. Appleseed.  The man is the gym teacher who happens to be married to Lauren's K teacher

                                                                 Sweet smile my little Lauren

I'm thankful for my parents coming down to keep Allison so I could help out in Lauren's classroom.  I'm so thankful that Lauren absolutely LOVES school.  We are blessed with a wonderful teacher for her.  I am so amazed at everything she is learning.  I am so proud of my big girl.  I love you my sweet daughter.

Rainy Days

The girls spent a wonderful, rainy, Saturday playing out side in the rain yesterday.  My wonderful, sweet husband got them dressed in their boots and let them go out and splash around in the small stream that had formed in our side yard.  The girls had a blast.  Their neighbor friends joined them for some splishing and splashing. 

Lauren and Allison

Lauren getting her hair wet

Lauren splashing in the small stream beside the house

Allison and our neighbor Alexa

The rain was pouring on the girls

While the girls were playing in the rain, I got a chance to start painting their wooden letters that spell their names.  It's going to take a little longer than I anticipated to finish them.

My dear friend, Billie bought these cute little crocheted hats for the girls and I snapped some cute pictures of them modelling the hats.

School and Labor Day Weekend

Lauren completed a four day week of school last week.  She absolutely LOVED it.  We are very impressed with her teacher!  Lauren has learned so much in the 7 days she has been in class.  She knows all the values of coins from a penny to a dollar.  She can sing, or rap several songs to go along with that knowledge.  She has learned about periods, question marks, and exclamation marks.  She brings home a letter book for each letter they have  introduced complete with the high frequency words they are supposed to be working on this year.  She is really enjoying writing words and making rhyming word lists.  She talks about her morning message all the time and has picked up a lot of writing from that.  Is this really Kindergarten????  She has learned more words this week than my first graders learned  in a month back when I was teaching 1st grade.  I guess the new Kindergarten really is the old First Grade and so much more!  I have mixed feelings about that. 

Allison and I are adjusting to being teacher and student  on Tuesdays and Thursdays instead of Mommy and daughter.  It's a work in progress.  We had a really good day today!  I am also enjoying the alone time I get to spend with Allison while Lauren is in school.     

I feel very rushed in my job, though.   I have to beat the traffic at Lauren's school when I drop her off in order to get to my school on time.  Then I have to leave my school quickly to pick Lauren up at 1:00.  I don't have any time to prepare for my class at school and that is very frustrating.  Fortunately my co-teacher is empathetic to the situation.  I don't know how Mom's who work full time do it.  I have an even greater admiration for them now than I did before I started working my two little mornings a week.

We enjoyed a great Labor Day weekend.  We went to Mom and Dad's for the weekend.  Here are a few pictures we took at the park on Saturday.  The weather was absolutely fabulous that day. 

We came back to Knoxville Sunday afternoon and got Allison's room primed and ready for repainting.  We were able to get two coats of paint on Monday to finish up her room.  Today Bill put the curtain rod up and we hung her new curtains.  I love the new pink paint and her curtains look great.  I didn't get any pictures of her room tonight, but I'll post some soon.