Character Matters

Wednesday was a big day for Violet - she had her class end-of-year party mid-morning, and then performed in a first-grade musical in the afternoon.

Part of the party included the students creating their own "trail mix" out of various ingredients like cereals, mini marshmallows, cranberries and chocolate chips.

Violet's holding her dragon, who came along for the fun. She turned in her "Bee Badges," earned for good behavior, for a "Bring a Stuffed Animal Pass." Better use those passes up, the school year's about over!












The children made different crafty creations during the party - Violet chose to fashion her toilet paper tubes into an elephant, and she made a cube from the straws and pipe cleaners.

In the afternoon, Violet and a couple of other first-graders from Mrs. Hawthorne's class joined Mrs. Judge's first-grade class for their performance of Character Matters.

Violet went to Mrs. Judge's class all year after lunch for math, one of the results of being in a split K/1 class. It worked out very well, and she really enjoyed her time with Mrs. Judge.

The musical used fairy tales and humor to teach character and values. Here, Violet is playing the part of Humpty Dumpty's friend.

She also played one of three princesses who encounter the Frog Prince.






















A recurring line through the show is about the characters' desire for donuts, so donuts were provided as the post-show snack for the parents and performers.

Cora came over to watch Violet's show, and she had a good vantage point to film some of it. Here is a snippet of Violet's part in the musical.

Gold Rush Day

Gold Rush Day is one of the highlights of fourth grade at Meadows, and Tuesday it was time for Mrs. Shafarman's class to experience the excitement.

The children are all assigned a character important to California, and they are to portray that person with a costume and memorized 45-second speech.

They're assigned to teams, and the teams competed Tuesday in a variety of knowledge-based quizzes to be the Gold Rush champion.

(This is another post where I'm thankful to my fellow mamas Pam, Elaine and Cathy for sharing photos.)

Here's the whole class, with their characters' names pinned to their shirts.








Mrs. Shafarman's classroom was turned into Gold Rush central, with the desks removed and seating set up in the back for the parent audience.

The students sat with their teams, and the morning started with each student coming up to give their brief autobiography.

Cora portrayed a woman named Biddy Mason, a fascinating 19th Century lady who started life as a slave in Georgia, and ended up a wealthy philanthropist.

She was taken to California by her owner, but California was a free state, and she ended up winning her freedom. She worked as a nurse, bought Los Angeles real estate, and eventually started a school for black children and a church.

Cora's little speech was excellent, and I was so happy to be there to watch it all. Parents don't help out much in fourth grade, but we were all invited to watch as much of Gold Rush Day as we were able. Stace came for several events, as well.

Following the speeches, the teams competed in a Jeopardy-styled game, with points awarded for correct answers on questions of California history.

Then, they had a geography game and a math competition. Seeing the children competing over knowledge they've worked hard to learn was a lot of fun.

During recess, the children had a snack organized by me and the other room mom, and then the girls practiced their square dancing. That was an activity for the end of the day.










Dinorah and I, the room moms, also organized a lunch befitting a special old-fashioned occasion - chicken tenders, mashed potatoes, biscuits and macaroni and cheese. We dined in the park.

Then, it was time for "Timeline Tantrums," where the teams had to put placards in order that listed a detail from California history. It was fast and furious, as the students ran around the circle with their placards, taking advice from their teammates.

Cora served as her team's go-to person for this game, and here she is showing how the game is aptly named. I love Pam's photo here!
















The next competition involved the teams examining antiques, with a written clue, and guessing what they were. Cora and her team correctly guessed that this item is a drill.

Next came the square dancing - I don't have any photos of this because the class needed some more female dance partners, and I was very busy dancing up a storm. Eventually, Stace and Sue, Sophia's mom, were dance partners, too, when a few more pairs were needed.

The dancing segment started with firm warnings from Mrs. Shafarman about being polite about dancing with a person of the opposite gender - sometimes 10-year-olds have a hard time with this!

After the dance came the award ceremony - Cora's team came in tied for first! Here they are, happy with their certificates and ribbons.

Vivian, Violet, Sophia, Ellie and Cora will surely miss Mrs. Shafarman next year! She is a truly gifted teacher, and Cora has benefited so much from being in her class.

Weekend fun

With my parents watching Violet and Cora at Sophia's house, Stace and I sneaked in a quick date at Wolf Creek's Brewery on Friday night.

We each enjoyed a beer, shared tacos from a food truck on site, and played some corn hole. It was a gorgeous evening.

Meanwhile, my parents planned to take Violet to Disneyland, but they discovered sadly that their annual passes were blocked. They made the best of it though; Downtown Disney has plenty of fun things to see and do, too.

They had dinner, bought Lego, watched a swing band and a magic show (see next photo).

When Stace and I picked up Cora, we took her and Sophia to McDonald's for ice cream. Cora wasn't interested in smiling for the photo.

They played a new hand-clapping game game that's making the fourth grade rounds.

(It's sweet having Cora still young enough to enjoy these childhood pleasures.)

I went through the girls' clothes, and Violet thought it would be fun to put on every pair of socks, every shirt and every skirt in her drawer.

So silly.

We bought these hanging lights at Costco, and Stace put them up over the weekend. They do a brilliant job illuminating the patio at night.

Cora went to Cooper and Wylie's birthday party on Sunday, and Pam got this cute shot of Wylie opening the doll Cora gave him. He was laughing so hard... (It was a joke gift - Cooper received a Beanie Boo, because he thinks they're creepy. There was more to the gift than creepy things, though.)

Underwood Strawberries

 Violet and the rest of the first-graders boarded buses Thursday for their big field trip to Underwood Farms.

Violet's between her buddies Camryn and Ryan here, showing off her super cool fidget spinner. We've given in to the spinner madness (mainly because they were at Vons for under $4).


Yes, they went last year to Underwood, too, but that was to pick vegetables. This year, they're lucky enough to pick strawberries.

 It's easier to get the classic class shot on the haystack when you only have seven kiddos to round up! The eighth Hawthorne firstie, Gavin, didn't make the trip.
Here are Ryan, Luke, Camryn, Violet, Rylin, Aya and Noah, with Mrs. Hawthorne. This group of kids has formed a special bond; it's fabulous seeing them play together at recess and lunch. I hope they all remain friends through their school years.

Following a lesson on plants with all the other field trip groups, we boarded wagons for our trip to the strawberry patch.

 You can see, it was a lot of fun.

Shortly after this photo, Violet, Aya and Camryn began a rousing version of "99 Bottles of Milk on the Wall" at the top of their lungs. Good times!

 The fields were full of juicy red berries, so it wasn't hard to fill our boxes.

We picked strawberries with our MOPS/Mom2Mom group year after year. Thursday was a fitting closure to my years of going to Underwood - one last time, and it was strawberries again.

Thanks to Mrs. Hawthorne for this photo, and a couple of others here.

More singing on the wagon ride back, this time with cheesy smiles.

We had lunch on the picnic tables, and then went out into the fun part of Underwood.

 Violet flew down the combine slide.

Then we looked at the animals, including the chickens...

...and turkeys.

Such a fun day; I'm so thankful to be able to go on these field trips. I know these days go by too quickly.

Cora's Great Day

Cora's class led the school's morning ceremony this week, and Cora got to welcome the students Tuesday before Nicolas led in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Stace and I happened to be on campus to help with a special science assembly, so we were lucky enough to watch.








Cooper and Wylie's mom Pam helped with the science assembly, and was on campus during recess. She watched the kids playing hitball, a baseball hybrid in which the kids use their outstretched arms as a bat to knock a pitched soccer ball into play.

Yes, that's Cora, the only girl in the game. This is a game she's loved the last couple of weeks, but she feels like she constantly has to prove her abilities to be accepted into the mix. She is so brave!

As a mama, I'm so relieved to hear her talk happily about something happening at recess; this year has been difficult for her in a lot of ways. Thanks to Pam for the photo (and the ones at the end).

I helped out when it was time for Cora's class to participate in the science assembly. This outside company brought in lots of neat, interactive displays, like what you'd experience at a children's science museum.

Here's Cora turning on a light on a bike with her pedal power.

After school, Pam took Cora with her boys to MB2 Raceway for some go-karting fun.

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Cora's been wanting to return to MB2 for a long time, so this seemed like a great opportunity for her. They met up with some other friends, and Cora had a blast.

School Happenings

We went to the school's Open House on Wednesday night and admired all the great work the girls and their classmates have completed this year.

Violet sent her "Flat Violet" to Sara and Tony, who were amazing hosts. Flat Violet went everywhere, even to Sedona with Sara's parents.

Here's Violet's habitat diorama, a significant spring project for the first-graders. Violet chose to focus on the rainforest; I love her drawings, all based on how-to videos on the internet.

We've already discussed Cora's big spring project, her miner's museum box and written autobiography.

On the right is another writing/art project of Cora's. The students chose a "special person" to draw and write about. It makes my mama's heart happy to read her kind words about Violet, which included, "The most important thing about Violet is that she cheers me up really quickly. ... Violet has influenced me to be a better person by showing me to take things a lot easier."
On the left is Violet's self-portrait and statement: "When I grow up I want to be an artist because I can draw pictures and paint. I will make $10 for each painting. Who am I?"

Lastly on the school event front, Cora was one of the MC's in the Variety Show on Friday. This is normally reserved for 6th graders, but they were short on help and opened it up to Student Council members.

It was wonderful seeing Cora and Emily on stage together one last time. Emily helped as an MC, and she also performed a killer version of Tomorrow from Annie.

Here's a couple of talented, beautiful girls! Maybe next year, Cora will sing, too. We need to think of something for Violet to do, too. She loved performing her jump-rope routine a year ago, but couldn't think of any ideas this year.