5th Grade Awards Day

Every year the 5th grade has an awards assembly.  They recognize kids for academic excellence, perfect attendance, leadership, prolific reading and a US history project called  the Great American Award.  William received awards for 4/5 of these things.  He missed out on the perfect attendance award because I let him stay home on the 5th grade ski day.  Oh well.

He received the Great American Award, which requires students to memorize the Gettysburg Address, the preamble to the Constitution, the Star Spangled Banner and the presidents of the United States, among other things.

He received the Eagles Nest award, which his school gives to students who earn 1000 AR points over the course of their elementary school career.  You read books and take quizzes on them to earn points.  The longer and higher the reading level, the more AR points you can earn.  For example, the 5th Harry Potter book is worth 48 points but a Magic Treehouse (early grade chapter book) might be worth 1.  You have to read a alot and take a lot of quizzes to earn Eagle's Nest.

He received an Academic Excellence award for scoring a 4 (Highly Proficient) on two of his three SAGE tests at the end of this year.  He scored a 4 in Science and Language Arts and a 3 in Math.  He was disappointed but a 3 is good - it means Proficient which means you learned what you were supposed to learn.

He also received a Kiwani's Club Award called the Hope of America.  He was one of six kids in his grade to earn it.  It is teacher-recommended and is based on scholarship and leadership.

William has had a great 5th grade year.  I wasn't too sure how it was going to go at first - he was bummed that he didn't have too many of his buddies in his class.  But he made new friends along the way and benefited from a great teacher!

Congratulations, William!

Tessa's 9th Birthday

This girl is 9 today!  She wanted a new bike for her birthday so that was her big present - she went with Jay on Saturday to pick it out and she loves it.  She never wants to have a party - she just wants to go out to dinner and this year she picked Sizzler.  After Jay gets home from church we are having Mongolian beef for dinner with cake and cupcakes for dessert.

Tessa is sweet and funny and loves to sing, dance, read and cook.  We love her so much!

The Great Debate

William's 5th grade SEM class focused on debate this year.  The topic that was chosen for them to debate was a fictional law requiring all children 16 and younger to wear a bicycle helmet.  They spent time learning to to construct responses and rebuttals.  They researched and wrote.  Last Tuesday night, they came together with SEM students from three other schools to debate the issue.

I'm still not sure who won any of the debates.  William's team did well on their initial speeches, I thought, but struggled with the rebuttal.  Still, it was a good experience for William to learn to research and articulate positions on an issue like this.

Everyone received a medal for their participation:

 William and his good friend Tanner:

William has enjoyed participating in SEM at Summit.  It has given him a chance to research and write and pursue interests that he might not otherwise have had a chance to pursue.  It has been good for him to stretch himself and work on extra projects on topics that he enjoys.  

April Showers

Yesterday it was 70 degrees.

Sigh.

Super Spellers

Today was the Summit Elementary Spelling Bee.  Both William and Tessa got through their class spelling bees and were able to participate against other 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders from Summit.

It was a good experience for Tessa.  She missed her first word - deerstalker (she spelled it as deerstocker) but she wasn't too upset.  It's always disappointing when that happens but she was OK.  It is hard to get up in front of a few hundred kids and spell out loud but she handled it well.  It reminded me of both William's and Henry's first go round in the spelling bee - they missed one of their first words but learned a lot from the experience.  

When Henry was in 5th grade he came in third.  William surprised himself and did him one better - he came in 2nd!  He studied some but didn't seem too worried about it leading up to the big event.  We went over words this morning before school and he was confident but didn't expect to win, so for him to make it to the final round was wonderful.  

He was a really good sport as well.  When the other kid spelled his final word to win, William clapped him on the back and shook his hand to congratulate him.  He told me later that the other kid was a better speller and deserved to win.  We are so proud of him not only for doing well in the spelling bee but for being gracious when he didn't win!  

Stop the Presses

Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows I'm not crafty.  I won't say I'm not creative because there are lots of different ways to be creative, but I'm not creative in an artistic, cute, fun, crafty kind of way.  Don't feel sorry for me, though.  I'm OK with it.  I kind of embrace it.  I can solve a quadratic equation and help Henry find the surface area of a cylinder so I figure we all have our set of talents and skills.

Sometimes you have to step outside your comfort zone, though, and I did it this week.  Tessa's 3rd grade class performed an opera - they came up with the costumes, the lyrics, the story and the sets.  She tried out for different parts in the opera and was cast as a pig.  Which meant she needed a pig costume.  

I can buy pink, so I did.  Someone else had a curly pig tail so they loaned it to her.  Great.  But she needed a pig nose.  Sigh.

I googled.  Pinterest beckoned me but then I saw all the ideas and, as I always do when confronted with Pinterest, I curled up in a fetal position on the floor.  However, there were images that seemed doable.  I had an empty toilet paper roll and a glue gun.  My friend Nicole, who is crafty and sews and stuff, had pink felt (! - really - pink felt!) and elastic. 

So, I present, my version of a pig nose:

And don't ask me to make anything else for a very, very long time.  I'm exhausted.  I can, however, help you find the volume of a pyramid.  Or use the Pythagorean Theorem to find the missing side of a right triangle.  That I can do!

SLC

5:30 am came awfully early one day last week.  Chaperoning the 5th Grade Field Trip to Salt Lake City requires you to be at the school at the ridiculously early time of 6:45.  Me, William and 95 of his closest friends boarded buses for the trip to SLC.

We went to Discovery Gateway in SLC for some fun play and a science lesson.  Next stop was the Utah State Capitol Building, where we watched part of the legislative session (a scintillating debate about regulations for car dealerships) and met with our legislators.  After lunch we headed up to Ogden and went to the Treehouse Museum, where the kids put together a tall tale and printed their own copy of the Declaration of Independence.

A few pictures from our day:

William in a committee room at the State Capitol:

 The Summit Elementary 5th Grade on the steps of the Capitol:

 One of William's friends took this picture.  We tried a selfie but I just looked stupid.  Not that this is much better, but still:

 The Treehouse Museum has a replica of the Oval Office:

 William played Davy Crockett in the tall tale:

 And proposed to Sally!

All in all it was a long but fun day.