Science Project

I hate how much homework and how many projects come home from school!  I want to send in a note telling these teachers that when my kids come home, they are mine and we will not be spending our time doing project after project and homework all night!  UGH!  I HATE it!  Our lives are crazy enough without adding more to the chaos.  The latest project was a weather project. Brena had to build some kind of weather instrument and then collect data for 5 days with it.  She choose to make an anemometer.  It didn't spin all that well, but it did work.  I didn't even care - just get it over with!

2014-2015 School Year

Writing 2014-2015 just seems like it should be in some sort of science fiction novel - is it really almost 2015?!  Weird...
After a very, very short summer, the kids went back to school.  Tyler started 6th grade and Brenalee started 4th.  Tyler is at the middle school and Brenalee now walks to school by herself.  It's so sad they are separate now!  Tyler rides the bus and it comes at 6:56a.m.!  Lucky for me he is very responsible.  He sets his alarm and gets up at 6am.  He packs his lunch and makes his breakfast and the rest of us roll out of bed about 6:30am to say good bye.  His first day was a little rough.  He forgot his schedule, so he didn't know where he was going.  He also had lots of locker problems and ended up missing his first period class.  But, it all got resolved and even though I thought he would tell me he was never going back, he loves it!

Brenalee got home and I asked her what her favorite part of the day was.  She said lunch.  She has Mrs. Pleasant - the same teacher Tyler had - so I was thrilled about that!  As usual, she wouldn't let me touch her hair.  I hope she looks back and says to herself "I should have let my mom do my hair!"

Here's to a great school year, and our last here in VA :(

Last day of 2013-2014 School Year

The kids have a half day of school today and then they are out for the summer! 

 Last day of school, June 20, 2014.                                 First day of school, September 4, 2013.

 There they go.  Bristol and I always stood at the door waving and blowing kisses every morning. 

 It's weird to think that they will no longer be walking to school together anymore!

5th Grade Promotion Ceremony...I cried my eyes out

Tyler has officially finished elementary school.  He will move on up to middle school in August.  I didn't think this would affect me that much.  But, I couldn't stop crying.  The ceremony was at 6:30pm in the gym and there were lots of awards given out.  Tyler got awards for the Virginia Reader's Choice (reading 5 of the VA Reader's Choice books), Excellent Attendance (not missing more than 3 days of school), and the Principal's Award.  When they started reading about the Principal's Award, I was thinking that sounds like a nice kid.  They didn't say if it was a boy or girl.  Then as they kept reading, I just started crying.  I knew it was Tyler they were describing.  I was so incredibly proud of him.  He is such a hard worker, and all around good kid.  He doesn't get the best grades, but he tries his heart out.  His teacher told me and some other staff at a meeting a few weeks ago "In my 20+ years of teaching, I've never had a student that has tried as hard as Tyler."  That made me feel so good, and sad at the same time.  He tries and tries and everyone knows he is so smart, but he has such a difficult time with tests and learning.  He does get mostly A's, B's and rarely some C's.  But, as his teacher said, he tries way to hard for those grades.  We aren't really sure what the problem is.  He's been tested, and tested, and tested.  There is nothing they can find - except they say he is above average on all the scoring and tests.  Which just makes no sense.  I'm so scared for what will happen in middle school because I do not think that the teachers there will be able to/want to care for him and spend as much time with him as his elementary school teachers have. 

The 5th grade at Gilbert Linkous Elementary School

Tyler receiving his awards

Tyler, Campbell, Nick and Brooklyn.  Campbell lives right around the corner from us and has been coming over and playing and swimming since we moved here.  She is a fun girl and I'm glad her and Tyler are good friends.  Nick is another one of Tyler's good friends.  These 3 spend a lot of time playing together and I hope that stays the same for next year!

 Mrs. Henderson, my absolute favorite teacher ever.  She is amazing.  I can't even begin to describe how much she cares for Tyler and all the extra work she put in for him!  We LOVE her!!

 This picture made me laugh so hard!  Nick telling Tyler to put a smile on his face!

 And, the Principal's Award.  How lucky I am to have this caring boy!

At the end of the ceremony, they had a slide show of pictures the parents had sent in of the kids when they were little.  It was so cute!  I didn't even know half the kids and I was just crying my eyes out!  What a wonderful experience we have had here at this school.  I hope middle school is just as good.
This is the picture we sent in for the slide show.

Congrats buddy on all your hard work!  Keep it up!  We love you!

First day of school 2013!

After a really long summer, school has started again.  I had such mixed emotions.  I was excited for them to get back to school and get back into a regular routine, but at the same time I miss them.  They are a HUGE help with Bristol!  It was very quiet without them today. 

Tyler is in 5th grade!  His teacher is Mrs. Henderson.  He said his favorite part of the day was playing sign-o - a get to know you game.

Brenalee is in 3rd grade!  Her teacher is Mrs. Mullins.  Her favorite part of the day was when the teacher read to them. 

Here's to a great year! 

Tyler's Weather Field Trip

The 4th grade went on a field trip to the news station in Roanoke.  I got lucky and got to go again.  I like that I've been able to go on all the field trips for the last few years.  I need to enjoy that now, because in a few months, I won't be going anymore!  The news station had all kinds of different stations set up talking about how different people and business use weather.  We also got to go into the studio where they film the news, and weather.  I never knew that the weather wasn't on a board behind the people like it shows on TV.  The wall was a bright green, and it just looks like the weather is behind the forecasters - it's actually on computer monitors way over off to the side.  Very interesting.

 Looking at the glider - no engine!  I don't know if I would be brave enough to go flying in that!  And, you only have to be 12 to fly it!!  IN THE AIR!!!  Crazy...

 The hot air balloon.  The kids loved climbing in the basket and hearing about this.

 The green wall weather demonstration.  So, you of course don't see the green wall on TV - you just see the weather map.  So, if you were to stand in front of that green wall with a green shirt on, the only thing that would be visible would be your head and arms or whatever wasn't covered in green.  It was really cool.

 The kids doing the weather.

 The kite station.  They had some really cool kites there.

 And, the big bulldozers and other equipment they use to get snow off the roads...brrr, I don't even want to think about that!

Beckley West Virginia Coal Mine

Today we went on a field trip with Tyler's 4th grade class to a coal mine in West Virginia!  How cool is it that we go to another state on a field trip??!!  Tyler thought it was great, especially because he says West Virginia is his favorite state - I still don't know why he says that.  Anyways, we had a very long (or what seemed like a long!) bus ride to the mine.  It was only about 1 1/2 hours, but on a bus when your legs are as long as mine, well it's not too comfortable!  The drive was gorgeous.  All the trees are turning here and they are so beautiful.  We had a lot of fun going into the mine and hearing the tour guide tell us things.  The tour guide was great, he was an older man who used to work in a mine.  One funny comment from one of the kids really made us laugh.  The tour guide was saying how the miners were only paid .20¢ for a ton of coal, so the boy asked the tour guide if he was only paid .20¢ when he worked.  Everyone laughed at that. 

I am so glad I didn't have to work in a mine - the conditions sounded almost unbearable.  The ceiling height was never more than 36 - 48", so you had to crawl into the mine and all around inside the mine.  There was no electricity, hardly any light.  They had very tiny lights that they could use but only would last for about 1 1/2 hours at the most.  They had to lay on their side to pick the coal and to shovel it into the wagon.  And, the mine went back about 7 miles!  Imagine crawling back 7 miles to pick coal on your side - 20¢!  They had to rent their houses from the mine for $4 a month, so I can't imagine they really ever were able to have much.

This coal mine was closed in 1910, and is just a museum now. 

 Example of 1 ton of coal - they could produce about 4-5 tons of coal a day/per man.

 This is where the superintendent of the mine lived.  About 10x bigger and nicer than where the miners lived.

 It was so gorgeous!!

 The old school house.

 We rode a little train into the mine.

Back Then Field Trip

Brenalee's class has been studying the past.  Today we went on a field trip to a museum that is actually an old house that was built here in our area in the early 1800's.  We also toured an old school house and learned how different it was to go to school back then.  Brena asked me if I grew up driving a horse and buggy...ummm really Brena??!!  She wanted to wear her pioneer dress because she said she would fit in at the old house.  She sure did and she got lots of compliments on it from all the tour guides.  I just wish she would have kept her matching bonnet on!