Red Butte Gardens vs. 55 First Graders

Yesterday I had the opportunity to accompany Colby on his field trip to Red Butte Gardens. I hadn't originally planned on going but Colby begged and begged so I decided that if he wanted me there I'd go. Thankfully Nancy was able to watch Cameron so I could go. Since I was a last minute addition taking someone else's place I wasn't sure if I'd be riding the bus or driving. Once all the students were loaded up his teacher asked me if I wanted to ride on the bus. I thought sure, why not so I went and grabbed my stuff and loaded up onto the bus. I found out the hard way that a school bus is not the most comfortable ride for a 30 week pregnant woman! Here are Colby and I on the bus. He was so excited because he doesn't get to ride a bus EVER unless it's for a field trip.

Ewww, I hate pregnancy pictures but Colby looked so cute I had to post.

I was assigned a group of four boys. This bunch was definitely a rambunctious group. Thankfully we were then put into a bigger group that included three additional parents and a guide from Red Butte.
Here's Colby smelling the lavender in the fragrance garden.
I think this is a plant that smells like lemonade.
Here he is trying to decide if he wants to taste the chives. Didn't happen!
Surprisingly he tasted the nectar from a flower.
Mmmm, these smell so good!
I love that he has so many caring kids in his class. This was two of the three girls that were consoling him after another little girl pushed him out of line at the drinking fountain. Gotta love tender caring girls! Thankfully this was the only incident of the day and the girl that pushed him out of line did eventually apologize to him.
It was a nice day to walk around the gardens, not too hot or too cold. We spent about 2 hours at the gardens and then loaded the bus back up for our ride back to school. I'm so glad I was able to spend the day with him and that he actually wanted me there. Wonder how long that's going to last....

My Little Dragon

Again this year Colby earned the Dragon Award from his school. He received a pin and a certificate for his achievement. I looked around for the qualifications for the award but I couldn't find them online anywhere to post them. I know that some of it is grades, reading 20 minutes every night, not missing school or having tardies, attending a fine arts program or participating in a service project, and participating in the school spelling bee or Reflections. This year Colby did Reflections in photography. He took a picture of the Partners statue at Disneyland. The pictures from the actual ceremony didn't turn out very well because in typical Eastlake School fashion things were somewhat disorganized and without stacked seating it's hard to see all the way to the front. This year they announced all the kids in the grade instead of individually so there was really no great opportunity to take a good picture of him getting his award. Hmm, now that makes me wonder why they never use the stage for things like this, then we'd be able to see. Anyway, here are a few pictures of my cute boys.

Cameron Funnies #102

I just had to get these written down before I forgot. Cameron is at the age where he comes up with some of the funniest things. Last night at dinner he rambled off some sentence, the words all jumbled together and I had no idea what he was saying so I looked at Chris and said, "Was that English?" Cameron looked right at me and said, "It wan't Spanish! But I know Chinese." We almost fell on the floor laughing! It doesn't sound nearly as funny now but at the time it was hilarious.

Darnit, I forgot what the other thing was he said last night. That's why I need to start writing things down. Hopefully Chris or I will remember what it was. I just know it was hilarious!

Grass Poop

Going to the gym the other day we had to walk through a big yard to get to our community center. We walked to the edge and I started walking and turned around and there was Cameron standing at the edge starring at the grass. I asked him what was wrong and he said, "Eww, look at all that poop." It took me about five minutes to convince him that it wasn't dog poop but little clumps of aerated grass. He said, "Ok, well then it's grass poop." Sure enough, I guess it is grass poop!

Thanks for the laugh little man!

Arrrgh, I'm a Pirate!

Saturday Cameron was invited to his very first kid birthday party. It was a pirate themed party and it just so happened that I had a pirate costume on hand so that's how he dressed. Ahh, he's growing up so fast! Next thing I know he's going to be heading to Kindergarten and I will be one sad momma.

Term Number 2-Finished!

Last week we had parent teacher conference with Colby's first grade teachers. I absolutely look forward to this because it's really the only time we get to see Colby showcase his Chinese skills. So far in first grade he is doing AMAZINGLY! Last year he did great academically but had a little bit of a problem with talking too much to his friends. (I really think a lot of it had to do with his teacher but that's a whole other subject.) Since he is in the Chinese program we meet with both his English and Chinese teachers together. As soon as we walked in his Chinese teacher started talking to him in Chinese. Chris and I looked at each other dumbfounded because we had no idea what they were saying or talking about. At this particular conference she asked him to name a bunch of different shapes in Chinese and after they finished that she had him put the Chinese symbol for that shape underneath it. He struggled a little with saying the shapes (or so I thought) but knew every single symbol she showed him and put it with the right picture. When he struggled a bit verbalizing the shapes I started to second guess myself and whether putting him in the Chinese program was working for him. After he finished with his Chinese teacher his English teacher gave us his report card and went over all that with us. He is doing so well and made the honor roll again. He has been on the honor roll every trimester in school so far which we are very proud of! Now back to the part about being worried about putting him in Chinese...to "grade" the kids on Chinese they fill out a form that says C for Can do this, WH for Can do this with help, and G for This is a goal. All the skills are broken down into categories such as Novice Low, Novice Mid, and Novice High. For example, this is a line from his report card:
Novice High-short, simple conversations on familiar topics=C

We were so pleasantly surprised to see that on all levels low through high he had received a score of C for every single task except for one. That means he's doing as well as he possibly can in this class. The part that blew us away was when his teacher said that Colby and only one other kid in both classes-56 kids had all C's except for one. When she told us that I really had to think about it because I couldn't believe she was saying that-Colby is one of two kids at the top of his entire class in Chinese. AMAZING! After I heard that I no longer worried about whether putting him in Chinese was the best choice or not.

As far as his English report card is concerned, he received all 4's which is the highest grade you can get for every area except he received a 3 in handwriting. If that's his only problem, if you can even call it that because it's still above average, heck I'll take it!

We are so very proud of him and could not ask for a better student! Colby when you're older and reading this remember that we love you very much and are so proud of you and couldn't ask for anything more!

Here's Colby showcasing his report cards, honor roll card, and missing front teeth.

Just had to add this picture too. Love these cute little boys more than words!

Jr Jazz

So I'm a little behind posting this. Colby finished up his first Jr Jazz season back in February. I have to say the season started out really slowly for him but by the end of the season he had improved tremendously! We are really proud of him. Good job, Colby! Now on to the next sport, he's trying to decide between soccer, baseball, and flag football. Chris and I are trying to sway him toward baseball because that seems to be the sport he has done the best at and since he's not an aggressive kid baseball is more his speed. Anyway, I guess we'll see where his heart leads him.

Here are a few pictures from one of his games. For some reason our camera got on the wrong setting so they turned out yellow. Anyway, you get the idea-he's number 40.