Decorations Installment #4

If I'm going to get most of the decorations posted by Christmas, I'm going to have to pick up the pace. So this post has two decorations and it's very difficult to know which one to post put first.

These two decorations were bought when my children were very young. E - elephant for Elise and J - jet for Jason. I would like to find more similar ones for the coming grandchildren, but I've never seen these since. Oh well, I'll have to find something else special for the grandchildren.

Each year as we all decorated the tree the kids each tried to get their letter the highest or in the most prominent place on the tree. I sort of forgot that until Elise was over and had to change where we had placed her E so that it was in a better spot than her brother. My goodness does the sibling rivilry ever end?




My little kids are all grown now, but my mind still holds the picture of them climbing on chairs to get their ornaments up as high as they can on the tree.

NOTE:
The pictures can't be posted side by side, so for the record in case either of my children is reading, I decided to post these alphabetically.

My Baby Still Needs Me!

I woke up Friday with not too much on my schedule, so it seemed as if I was going to have a relaxing day until I get the call. My daughter, a kindergarten teacher at a nearby school, calls with panic in her voice. She starts out with, "Mom what are you doing today?" My answer of "not too much" brought relief to her voice and then the details. The school system had a wonderful science kit that was being passed around from school to school. She already had a unit on fish which included small 1/2 gallong plastic boxes that served as aquariums. That wasn't too bad, she'd grown up with us having a huge 55 gallon aquarium so that was ok, she was fine. But now the next unit had arrived. It was BUGS and WORMS and SNAILS! My response of "Oh My" followed by giggles and then outright laughing was not funny to her. She saw no humor in it at all. I just could see her opening the box and seeing those bugs. Now to fully understand the situation, you have to understand. Elise, my daughter is a phenomenal teacher and especially in kindergarten. She was created to teach and connect with young children. She makes them each feel special and infuses them with a love for learning. She loves those children and loves teaching. If she had to pay to do the job I think she'd do it. But there's one thing she doesn't do and that's bugs, and worms and snails. She's terrified of them.So she called her Mom to the rescue. (Her husband was busy working and couldn't be bothered at the time and her dad was out of town.)

So of course I have to go - She needs me!

Here I am preparing the more permanent aquarium for the surviving fish from the science observations.



Here are the two goldfish in their new homes along with some small guppies that can't be seen.



The white things at the bottom of the aquarium are sticky notes with the names of the fish, there until they receive proper labels like everything else in the classroom has.

Life in Kindergarten

Everyone needs to visit a kindergarten classroom at least once a year. It brings you back to the basics of life and what's really important. So while I was there helping my daughter I had to snap a few extra pictures.

Here's a display on the wall that caught my eye. We should all be proud of our accomplishments!


This wall has the names of the students who can do various task such as "open their milk", "know their addresses", "know their birthdays", "can count to 100".
We should all be proud of what we can do! Delight in the simple things and most of all hope that you can still do all of that when you're 90 years old. They should have a wall like that at the senior citizen center. Maybe we'd try harder to keep going!

And here is Elise going over important things with her class who listens indently to the instructions. It was Friday so the staff wore jeans that day. The students all think the tree is very fancy and very expensive. Oh to have the eyes of a child! (The tree was free from her in-laws.)



Now I just had to snap a picture of this. It was on a very high shelf out of the reach of any child, but I couldn't help but wonder what in the world it is used for.

I'm not sure what kind of leaks they might have in a kindergarten class, and I've never stayed long enough to witness any leaks. Maybe it's good that I haven't! So maybe my daughter can post a comment to explain what this is for.